New patent from Google on local search

December 1st, 2006 · No Comments

Bill Slawski posted an excellent summary of a new patent application from Google which discusses how an SE ranks websites for a ‘local’ search. My lesson from this patent is that the center point method of calculating proximity in local search may now be obsolete. The new method which appears to be highly reliant upon references and a few other items. Here is a quote from Bill’s post

The patent describes how it might associate a query with a certain set of geographical locations based upon such things as postal codes, or alternatively it might take the latitude and longitude of the map window when the search takes place while the searcher is looking at a map of the area in question. After that, it might look at factors such as:

1. A score associated with an authoritative document,
2. The total number of documents referring to a business associated with the document,
3. The highest score of documents referring to the business,
4. The number of documents with reviews of the business, and;
5. The number of information documents that mention the business.

The patent describes each of those in more detail, including what it might consider an authoritative document associated with a business. It’s possible that may be described in another patent application which came out this summer looking at some ways of determining which web site is the most authoritative for a business. See: Authority Documents for Google’s Local Search.

Greg Sterling also has an interesting take on this patent on his blog