Finding the right place when you need it

Thursday, February 24, 2011 | 2:45 PM

Over the past few months, we have launched several new mobile search features for iPhone and Android-powered devices that make it easier to find local businesses. In the US, we launched an “open now” feature which lets you filter local search results to show only businesses that are open right now, based on their listed hours. When you’re hankering for pizza at 1 o’clock in the morning, this can be really handy:

Other local search options available globally include filtering by star ratings (find a highly-rated restaurant for your first date) and by distance (especially handy when you’re on foot).

You may have noticed other improvements as well, like the addition of images, reviews from around the web and bigger buttons for viewing a map or calling a business directly. Each business’s open hours are also shown in the result snippets.

If you haven’t used local search recently, now is a great time to try it out. Just go to www.google.com in your browser, tap on the “Places” link at the top of the page, and do a search. You can also access these features when searching for businesses on Google Maps for mobile on Android devices.

14 comments:

absb said...

Thanks again Google for all your hard work!

Dan said...

An issue that has cropped up with certain (some, possibly many) Places pages is that you can't add hours to those places, even after editing the page and getting the changes approved. The Places pages won't update to reflect the new information, and as a consequence, you're unable to search for businesses that are 'Open Now' because the Places page doesn't contain any hours information.

... said...

Can you also search for poorly-ranked restaurants for your last date?

lizbonline said...

Great!! What is the roll-out plan for the rest of the world? UK particularly please!

Unknown said...

Thats great, development

Bob said...

What is a 'hanker'?

halpwr said...

Take that yelp!

Jana said...

hankering=craving

Unknown said...

Good. Maybe Google will continue following the other suggestions at the http://www.goodfaithclause.com website. The "do now" or "low hanging fruit" section or something like that. Ironic that it has been out there for a long time and supposedly because Google created a need based on their poor performance and now here it is. Yawnnn. Google is described in the 3 blue lines.

mayank said...

AWESOME!!!!!!!
WHAT A GREAT DEVELOPMENT BY GOOGLE..
THANX FOR THIS.
Price India

The Invite Bunny said...

You spelled Albuquerque incorrectly on your banner ad. Was that intentional or merely insulting?

Unknown said...

This is pretty nifty

Unknown said...

This feature was stolen from another company. It is shameful that it is being presented here as innovative therefore deceiving those reading this blog or using the feature. Do no evil?

Dawn said...

I could access places on my android phone when I got it last week,now for days nothing. Any ideas what the problem is. It works ok on the pc.
Cheers Dawn