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Google has just added a useful button to its mobile homepage – tagged “near me now”, this feature lets you search by using your location as the query. Currently available for iPhone and Android phone users in the U.S., “Near me now” utilizes GPS for determining your whereabouts and then searches for results near your location. The new Google mobile homepage feature lets you easily search for popular categories of nearby places. Just by clicking or tapping on the “Near me now” link right on the Google mobile homepage, you will find categories of places. And if you want more you can just select the “browse more categories” link. You can also explore the whereabouts of specific locations including reviews or rants of other people about a specific restaurants and their menus and services. To use this feature, make sure that the location feature of your iPhone, Nexus One or other Android phones is activated. Then visit google.com your phone’s browser and you can easily spot the “Near me now” tab. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Google Adds “Near Me Now” to its Mobile
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Yahoo just made a minor enhancement to its search results by making it easier to find local businesses . This is done by adding the Yahoo local business shortcut everytime it displays search results for business-related query even if the query does not contain the location. Additionally, search results can now be refined further by neighborhood or nearby city right on the search results page. For instance when searching for “evvia” and you’re located in the Palo Alto area, Yahoo will display local shortcut for the restaurant including addresses, phone numbers, and reviews. The feature also works when searching for business categories. An example for specific filtering of search result given by a post from the Yahoo Search blog is when searching for ”Dentist San Francisco.” You can immediately jump into the specific dentist located in your neighborhood just by clicking the shortcut for that search result. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Yahoo Enhances Search Results for Local
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Although local shopping search engine Milo.com has been around for two years already, it is only now that the site is going full blast as it leaves beta stage. Before you start thinking that Milo.com is just another local shopping search engine that will only tell you specific online deals, well actually it does more than that. Milo also gives you available inventories of products available on stores near your location. Sounds good, right? Wait, there’s more. As it leave beta and since real-time search is all the rage right now, Milo.com is also rolling out a search interface that shows real-time product inventory results. If you’re familiar with another product search engine Kayak, well it’s almost similar in features. And like other consumer online shopping sites, Milo.com gives you full details of the products you want to purchase including reviews from other buyers. While this is useful when shopping for products, it would have been more useful if the reviews featured are actually that of the store where a user purchased the product. It’s more appropriate that way since Milo.com is supposed to be a tool for finding the nearest local stores that offer consumer products. Still, it’s a good site and the real-time feature is a welcome treat. However, we could not discount the fact that Milo.com is up against major search engines who offer similar search verticals. Although real-time results and local store finder are not yet in the major search engines’ agenda. Well except for Google which is reportedly preparing to offer offer product inventories of local stores in product searches. In the meantime, check out Milo.com and enjoy it for what it offers especially if you’re still rushing on your Christmas shopping chores. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Local Shopping Search Engine Milo.com Goes
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So aside from real-time search , Google is also embarking on a more ambitious and yet a possibly useful feature, this time for its mobile search service . These new features will allow you to do mobile search by voice, location maps and visual imagery. Mobile Search by Voice – This mobile search was introduced last year, and after a successful run, Google is now making this feature available in several new languages including – Japanese, joining English and Mandarin. In the long-run, Google hopes to combine voice recognition-powered search with Google’s translation service. Mobile Search by Location – What’s Nearby feature is being rolled out for Google Maps running on Adroid 1.6 devices. This feature gives you a list of the ten closes places to your current location. This feature basically answers the perennial question “What’s around here, anyway?” Mobile Search by Visual Images aka Google Goggles – Now it the most ambitious feature among the three new features of Google mobile search. Supporting again Android 1.6 devices, Google Goggles lets you search for objects using images rather than words. So, you just need to take a photo of any object you encounter in real-life and if Google recognizes it will return relevant search results. Google Goggles currently supports landmarks, works of arts and products. These new features are pretty exciting indeed. If only they will be made available for other devices such as the iPhone. Or perhaps, these could be good reasons to get an Android phone now. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Google Experiments on New Features of Mobile
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To access all (but one) Google services listed here while not online you will need to install Gears FireFox addon which lets web applications interact naturally with your desktop and stores web data locally in a fully-searchable database. Her’s a quick overview of which Google services are available in the offline mode and what exactly you’ll be able to do:
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