Today Google announced on their blog that they are now serving up local results for terms that aren’t necessarily “local” in nature. The new feature has been rolled out to all users world-wide. You don’t even have to be logged in to a Google account to get local results now — which some people might find disturbing.

Previously, if you wanted local results, you had to search for something like “pizza in seattle”. Now, searching for something like “photographers” or “pizza” without any type of location modifier now shows you local results.

How does Google figure out where you are when you search for a term without a location? They look at your IP address and try to figure out your location from that. This isn’t always the most accurate way to determine the location of a user, so they have plans to use a different method of triangulation with GPS or browsers plugins.

What do you think of the new feature?

Source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/google-becomes-more-local.html

Source:http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=1356

Hmm.... could be good, but what if I just want the wikipedia article on Pizza?

And do't they already do this kind of thing using Google Mobile?

So you just type: Pizza wiki, James.

:)

The top results for 'pizza' are:
1. Dominoes
2. Papa Johns
3. Pizza Hut
4. Local Results
5. Wikipedia

Seems like a logical ranking to me. I like the new local results and its simple to change your location and not have to regenerate the entire page, just the local results.

It's definitely going to take time to get used to it.

This topic is also talked about here
http://blogoscoped.com/forum/153022.html

The result list should update/change when I move or zoom the map. So I only search results from the map I can see.

Now when I do a search I must click next in hope to find the right result, and then the map automatically zooms out and moves out of my focus.

When you set the "num" parameter in your url it controls the number of results. Apparently it is passed to the embedded Google local map and also controls the number of results there. When the number is small the map tends to cover less territory. If you set "num=1" you can get an idea of what location Google is using.

num=1 http://www.google.com/search?num=1&q=pizza

The below are for locations near zip code 10101.

num=1 http://www.google.com/search?num=1&q=post+office&gl=us&near=10101
num=2 http://www.google.com/search?num=2&q=post+office&gl=us&near=10101
num=3 http://www.google.com/search?num=3&q=post+office&gl=us&near=10101

num=4 http://www.google.com/search?num=4&q=post+office&gl=us&near=10101
num=5 http://www.google.com/search?num=5&q=post+office&gl=us&near=10101
num=6 http://www.google.com/search?num=6&q=post+office&gl=us&near=10101
num=7 http://www.google.com/search?num=7&q=post+office&gl=us&near=10101
num=8 http://www.google.com/search?num=8&q=post+office&gl=us&near=10101
num=9 http://www.google.com/search?num=9&q=post+office&gl=us&near=10101

num=10 http://www.google.com/search?num=10&q=post+office&gl=us&near=10101

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To omit the map try "near=0".
To position the map within the SERP:
"ct=location-input-top"
"ct=location-input-middle"

Trying 'pizza' search here – results

A. Eurohostel – www.eurohostel. – 09 xxx xxxx – Arvostelut (138)
B. Pizza Service Kallio – maps.google.fi – 09 xxx xxxx – Lisätietoja
C. Pizza Ässä – omakaupunki.hs.
D. Pizza Taxi Ruoholahti – www.pizzataxi.
E. Pizza Express Töölö – www.pizza-express.
....

[phone numbers removed and URL's modified]

'Arvostelut' is Reviews and 'Lisätietoja' More details in English