The timing of the post from friday couldn’t of been better, why ? google have just launched google instant for google places.
If you miss my crash course in local seo check it out!
On google blog here google have announced the launch of how place will now “spy” on what you type to help you search within places.
Instant yes is making ok suggestions but if you quote me on the local seo course post:
But… google suggest is great but it knows where I live, my IP and still give me blackpool, I’m sure google will update the ago for suggest very soon regarding local search and it will have a big impact on seo…
So yes google have launched this new feature but it still runs on data from the country and not location to my location.
See this screen shot for fishing shops:
As you can see from the screen shot the non locational search return local but instant/suggestions only show national data and not local or a mix of the two.