Our own Barry Schwartz spotted this today on Google Maps: A search for rustybrick includes a link to see Flickr photos displayed on Google Maps:

Clicking on that link leads to a fairly lengthy list of photos imported into Google Maps via the Flickr API. The photos are all from a Flickr feed that includes photos uploaded by “rustybrick,” tagged with “rustybrick,” and geotagged with the photo’s location. Barry’s feed, for example, includes photos from the RustyBrick office in New York as well as Barry’s trips to Israel.

I tried to mimic this with other searches, and the only similar instance I found was on a search for “pizza,” which included a link for data from a Platial.com feed.

Only the link/feed is broken and produces no visible results on Google Maps.

It’s possible this has been happening for some time now, but several of the SEL editors say they’d never seen it before.

What’s it all mean? If memory serves me correctly, Google has indicated — or perhaps implied — that it wants Google Maps and Google Earth to be a repository for as much geotagged information as possible, from any and all sources. This seems to be a step in that direction.

On a semi-related note, I noted last week on my own blog that Google was scraping photos and videos from across the web and putting them into local business profiles.

Related Topics: Google: Maps & Local | Top News

About The Author: Matt McGee is Search Engine Land's Executive News Editor, responsible for overseeing our daily news coverage. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. His web career continues to include a small number of SEO and social media consulting clients, as well as regular speaking engagements at marketing events around the U.S. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee and/or on Google Plus. See more articles by Matt McGee