Editor’s note: Since the publication of this post, Google’s local results have undergone significant visual and technical changes. We’re leaving this post up as a good reference. Happy reading!
I took part in the first Euro 2012 State of Search Roadshow where I met many different SEOs all over Europe. I interviewed 11 SEOs and blogged about it on the Best European Search Blog 2012, State of Search. While I was out in Europe, I thought I would look at local search in the different languages and different countries. I have picked the most interesting results, looking at four Google country browsers:
The search queries were in English, Italian and German and were the following:
- “attractions in Florence”
- “attractions in Rome”
- “top attractions in Austria”
- “attractions in England”
Here are some of the differences I noticed in the different search engines using the English and non English search query.
1) Google Maps is Language Dependent
When I was in Florence, I typed in “attrazioni a Firenze” (attractions in Florence in Italian) into google.it. Google Maps was present. The first results were firenze-online.com, followed by trivago.it/firenze and then tripadvisor.it as can be seen below.
However, when I typed in “attractions in Florence” in English into google.it, Google Maps was not displayed. The results were all in English as I had written the query in English but in an Italian browser, google.it which also knew my location was Florence.
Both searches were carried out in incognito windows one after one another. It was interesting to see the translated version showed different search results as shown below. The first search results in English was goitaly.about.com, the next was tripadvisor.com followed by tours-italy.com. When I typed the query in Italian, I had Italian domains and the first result was firenze-online.com and tripadvisor.it was in third instead of position two.
I thought these results were really interesting so when I came back to the UK, I wanted to check out the results in google.co.uk (in the UK). When I typed in “attrazioni a Firenze” (attractions in Florence in Italian), Google Maps was still present in the SERPs. The top four results were the same as in google.it (just that firenze-online.com had swapped positions with trivago.it and was now position two).
When I used google.co.uk and searched for “attractions in Florence”, Google Maps was not displayed which was what I saw using the English search query in googe.it. goitaly.about.com was still in first position, but in second it was the .co.uk domain of tripadvisor instead of the .com and then in third position was aviewoncities.com, replacing tours-italy.com.
2) Google Maps Present For Both English and Italian
The next stop in my Europe trip was Rome. While I was there, I wanted to see the search queries in “attrazioni a Rome” (attractions in Rome in Italian) into google.it. Google Maps was present which is what I expected following on from the in “attrazioni a Firenze” results.
I then entered the query, “attractions in Rome” in English and I was surprised to see Google maps was also present. This had not been the case with “attracitons in Florence” search query in google.it. Why was Google Maps showing this search query in English “attractions in Rome”?
3) No Google Maps Present for Both English and Non English Queries
While I was in Europe, I visited also Vienna, Austria. During this time, I searched for “bestenattraktionen in Osterreich” (best attractions in Austria in German) in google.at. There was no Google Maps present and one of the search results was from a post in 2009. Tripadvisor was not in the top seven search results, but tripwolf the travel blog, based in Vienna was. I was surprised tripadvisor was not top in the SERPs as it had been for google.it for both the English and Italian search queries.
When I typed the search query “top attractions in Austria” in English in google.at, Google Maps did not appear. I am not surprised by the lack of Google Maps as “Austria” is too generic a term or so I thought.
4) Google Maps Present for Both .co.uk and .com.au
When I was back in England, I searched for “attractions in England”. As seen below, Google knew my location (which was Epsom) which may be one reason why Google Maps was present. However, in my previous search query for “bestenattraktionen in Osterreich“ Google also knew my location as Vienna, yet did not display Google Maps. Why does Google recognize my location in google.co.uk but not in google.at?
I tested the search query “attractions in England”, in another English browser, choosing google.com.au and setting my location as Mosman Park, Perth. I saw nearly the same results but PPC was off in .com.au unlike in .co.uk. This may be because the English Days Out company who had a PPC advert in .co.uk only target .co.uk searches.
Conclusion
From the mini test I carried out, it appears as though there is no consistency when it comes to Google+ Local (editor’s note: now called “Google My Business”) showing you local results. As SEOs you would expect to see Google Maps to appear when you are in a your country specific browser, when you have filled in your location and you search for a specific term. For example when I searched for “attractions in Rome” (in English in google.it), Google Maps was present but it did not appear when I searched for “attractions in Florence” (in English in google.it). You may not expect Google Maps to show for more generic terms such as “attractions in England” but it does, as the example above highlights.
I held a Search London event a few weeks back and the presentation confirmed that Google+ Local needs further enhancements in order for us to be able to use it consistently and use it as a marketing tool for our businesses and for our clients. If you have different results to what I have shown in this post, I would be very interested to hear from you. I regularly blog on my site SEO Jo Blogs and also run Search London, so connect with me or come to one of the meetups if you would like to get in touch.
I will continue to test the different search queries in different Google country browsers, I am off to Sweden and France next.
