Hey - let's look at how the search engines show local results.
What the Pho is one of my favourite Seattle based pho restaurants. According to its website, it has three locations: Bellevue (the original), Bothell and South Center.
Bing's results for the query {what the pho seattle} look pretty reasonable. It gets all three locations and throws in a few extra pho joints for good measure. The only major gripe about this result is that the advert served with it is for playing free 'car games' (whatever they are). The result makes it clear that there are multiple locations (I didn't know that!) and the approximate area that this micro-chain covers.
The map style has reasonable contrast and provide good geographic context for those familiar with the overall area.
Yahoo! just shows two results. It's map style is less pleasing in that the bright colours provide less contrast between the map and the overlayed information.
AOL's results ('enhanced by Google') also only captures two locations. It's map style is perhaps the most brazen of all.
AOL's advertisement is, like Bing's, not particularly relevant. Note that, as with Bing and Yahoo!, AOL also shows the company's actual website as an organic result below the specialized local block on the page.
Overall, Google's results are stylistically the most diverse. The result block focuses on the structure of the restaurant's site, providing deep links in to the various useful areas of the site. However, in doing this it provides location information for just one of the establishments and, most importantly, is returning the one that is furthest from Seattle.
Google perhaps the most exercised map style which manages to mix useful colour information on the map with well contrasted overlayed information. Note the reissuing the query as {what the pho bellevue} does switch out the highlighted location, but the fact that this is a micro-chain is missing when it can be conveniently expressed on the map.
What would an ideal result look like? When testing search interfaces with made up queries it is generally hard to asses as it comes down to what is called the 'intent' of the query. As there are many possible reasons for issuing the query, the engine needs to hedge in order to satisfy all cases without really being able to understand what is desired. A mix of both web and location information seems reasonable but none of the search engines really gets this right. All but Google provide just map based information with the basic attributes of the location. Google, on the other hand over-indexes on the web information missing out the fact that this is a chain and where the various places are located.
Those results that do contain a map don't quite nail it as they don't distinguish between the chain items and the alternates (e.g. by using different colours for the map pins).
Google gives a slightly different result for the more generic query {what the pho} - i.e. with no location.
Here we do get the map of the micro-chain and just the chain with the website thrown in for good measure.
Bing also does something not bad for this alternative query but fails at the last furlong by not including all and only the chain entities, substituting a different restaurant in the third place result.
Note also that in this case the advert is far better than in the original Bing result.
Yahoo! and AOL fail to provide any local tailored results for this query serving only web results.
Looking at how these results are presented from a textural point of view Bing and Google seem to be the most sophisticated with the Bing interface looking a little washed out. It is almost as if one is waiting for Bing to come in with some sparse but effective use of colour. Google feels, in contrast, as if it has got there already.
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