Google Local

Getting to Google Local from the Google main page is easy.

When going to the main page of Google Local for the first time, Google will begin with the location of your last search. You'll also find helpful hints along the left side of the page pointing out syntax for typical searches.

Searching for a city in Google Local will bring up an overview map.

You can easily click between map, satellite, and hybrid views in Google Local right on the map. Search results are placed on the map with flags, hovering over them brings up location details. Here we've zoomed in to the maximum Map view on Wakulla Springs State Park in the Florida panhandle. Note the search bar alternatives for finding businesses and generating directions above the map itself. Note also the icons for printing, emailing, and linking to the page.

Many of the satellite maps you?ll see using Google Local are the same available with Google Earth. Here we've zoomed in on satellite imagery of Wakulla Springs State Park in the Florida panhandle.

Even when there's not a specific match to the name of something you are searching for, if it appears in descripitions of other places, these will be listed in the search results and placed on the map.

With Google Local, searching for hamburgers around San Marcos, CA is as easy as bringing up a map of the general vicinity and entering "burger" in the search bar.

One thing we noticed with Google Local in particular, even if a location, such as the park listed here, shows up in the search database it doesn't necessarily mean that Google Local will recognize the address when generating directions. We received an error message stating that "Flying LC Ln" was not recognized---despite it actually being in the database.

Using the "Get Directions" feature in Google Local presents you with your turn by turn directions along the left of the page and three different views. Here we see the map view.

Here we've clicked on the satellite view of our directions.

Hybrid View of directions displays your route on top of a satellite image that also has major roads overlayed.

The folks at Google have made it easy to take a lot of what's available in Google Local with you on your mobile phone with their recently released Google Mobile service (see our separate review).