Google Local in Europe
The Register
The Register are reporting that the much rumoured, "Google will launch Local based search in Europe" is indeed fact, though the beta's have been around for some months...
Head of Google Germany, Switzerland and Austria, Holger Meyer, went on-the-record and stated that the UK was to receive a new "local" button to its search engine "later in the year."
Google local UK may well offer search based on manually entered postcode or town but unlikely to be based on I.P. based geolocation.
Speaking to the German trade magazine Der Handelsblatt, Meyer said that the UK was going to be a beta test track for the new sideline system which - he predicted - will roll out over the rest of Europe in the coming years. "Google Local (which it will be called in all areas and zones) starts first in Great Britain... and only later in Germany." The paper reports.
As the UK seems to be getting it first in Europe I wonder who is going to be first to test with fake addresses on page, fake WHOIS info, multi page town, county name sites (as in common for the US market) and I wonder who has scraped sites like Thomson Local and Yell the companies who currently have the data that G will be competing against.
Yer, let's hope they're better than the Beta's - the danish one still wont give me anything for pizza in københavn....
I can't even say københavn let alone know where to get pizza there!
On a general topic of localisation in search, how does Google (and the other engines) deal with the Danish (And other) character sets in the main search?
I ask because it still doesn't cope too well with the GBP£ and EUR€ symbol in Google News.
No idea jason, i barely speak danish so rarely search with it :)
københavn = copenhagen
Which pretty much sums up my ignorance in such matters! :)
I bet it can find you a macdonalds though.
FWIW, i'm finding that GG ignores the accents in spanish words, ie inglés (the upward slanting accent over the E) reads the same as ingles (no accent).
Ties in with new Domain
I came to this posting a bit late but decided to comment anyhow. I am just wandering if this is going to tie in with the new .EU domain when it is released.
.EU will become a high level domain and replace some of the smaller country domains. Analyst believe it will be on par with .com and .co.uk
I have been of the mind that Google will produce another engine just to deal with this, we will see google.eu
Now this local search in Europe has come to light is it possible it could tie in with .EU?