Yesterday Microsoft announced that in 24 countries, including the US and UK, Nokia (Navteq) will be delivering traffic data to Bing Maps. The company also said that it would start using Nokia’s geocoding services in several (unnamed) countries to improve directions.

In May last year I wrote Bing Maps To Be Powered (Replaced) By Nokia? A source argued to me that over time Nokia would gradually replace most of the infrastructure behind Bing Maps. I was very surprised at the time but it appears to be happening.

This mapping integration was allegedly, according to my source, one of the sticking points that caused Nokia to pass on Android as a platform. Google wouldn’t similarly agree to a commingling of Google Maps with Nokia on the back end. However if Windows Phone fails to deliver for Nokia — so far results have been modest — the company may be compelled to embrace Android as a survival move.

Nokia is also behind the new Yahoo Maps. My suspicion is that Nokia hopes to eventually make these third party mapping services part of its local ad network.

Related Entries

• Microsoft And Nokia Unify Maps On PC, Mobile
• Report: Apple Replacing Google Maps With Own Product In iOS 6
• Will Apple’s Move Bring A Real & Perhaps Better Google Maps To iOS
• Microsoft Makes Venue Maps More Visible On Bing
• Bing Maps To Be Powered (Replaced) By Nokia?
• Nokia Now “Powering” Bing Maps
• Powered By Nokia, The New Yahoo Maps Goes Live
• Google Maps Vs. Bing Maps: Summer Vacation Planning Showdown

Most important among the 50+ changes announced from our multinational / global point of view, is Google’s new handling of generic search queries which previously would not have been localised.

Where in the past a search such as ‘seo’ or ‘jacket’ would have simply returned Google’s non-local result set, now Google will include results specific to your location (whether you have actively set your location or not: Google will locate you based on your IP address).

Google SERP showing localised results for a generic search term post Google Venice.

Obviously, the impacts of this change are far reaching.

Where previously in a multinational SEO or PPC campaign you would plan your Keyphrase Strategy around performance on localised sets of mid to long tail keyphrase terms and largely discount targeting performance for very generic (i.e. single word) terms for all but the largest websites or brands, now you will very likely start receiving traffic for very top level terms when you’re considered to be a localised listing to the searcher’s location.

This means that if you do operate in multiple territories, it’s now absolutely essential to be considered a local listing.

For a walkthrough guide on how to ensure localisation across all your target markets, follow my guides in previous Search Engine Land articles.

In effect, by thoroughly localising pages across your target markets, you are now able to be returned for the very highest traffic terms with minimal effort.

Such terms have the benefit of a very high percentage of new visit visitors associated with them (your SEO ‘net’ is cast further, capturing more visits from people who have never been to your website before).

This reflects the message you should be sending out to the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) of top line information about your company USP or brand message, and your fulfilment of that message on the associated landing page.

I’ve also written about this before in these hallowed pages, so I won’t go over old ground again.

But for example, if you are a high-street retailer and your point of difference is a guarantee of authentic third-party brand products with a rock-solid retail warranty, then getting those elements front and centre of your SERP snippet, and following through on that promise on the landing page is now vital.

Supplementing that message via PPC for successful top level organic search visit terms identified through your eCommerce data is also highly recommended. Partly because of the proven overall improvement in SERP conversion for such strategies, but also because going through this analysis process will highlight the new generic terms driving traffic to your site as a result of Google’s Venice update.

By matching your strategy to Google’s algorithmic triggering of localised results for generic search terms you will naturally be targeting some of the most valuable, least competitive (relatively!) SERPs that SEOs have ever seen to date.

They won’t stay uncompetitive for long, that’s a guarantee!

The changes affect both the upload and management processes. Here are the primary bullet points from Google’s blog post:

• Edit one or more of your listings’ data at once
• Search through your listings, filtering by specific information or for listings with errors
• Upload new listings using a data file or by adding them individually within the interface
• Tell us how we can improve this new interface by clicking the “Give Feedback” link

Google has put together two short videos showing the new features — the first video is for new users that aren’t verified to do bulk uploads yet, and the second is for already-verified users.

Chitika “looked at hundreds of millions of impressions between April 8 and 14 and broke down traffic depending on operating system, search traffic, and the type of search query.” The company also broke out local searches (often inferred from the query category).

These data don’t measure activity within or involving apps in any way.

Chitika reported that 54 percent of browser-based web traffic from iOS was being driven via search (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.). Chitika didn’t report the breakdown of that traffic by search engine and told me that would require an additional analysis. However other data suggest that Google represents about 95 percent of mobile search traffic coming from browsers.

The data argue that iOS browser activity is more “search-centric” than usage behavior on PCs (Mac or Windows). This is also somewhat counter-intuitive given than search is generally easier to use on a PC than on a mobile device.

In terms of local search, the directional relationship among iOS, Android and Windows is roughly the same as in general search chart. However Mac and Linux-based searches reverse positions in the local search data chart. It’s curious and Chitika didn’t really have an explanation for the phenomenon. I asked whether there could have been an error and I was told essentially “no.”

Chitika is saying that 36 percent of search query volume coming from iOS devices has a local intent. This compares to Google’s 40 percent figure for mobile. In contrast, 28 percent of Android search traffic carries a local intent according to Chitika. Figuring out why is an interesting exercise.

Why would iOS users be doing more local searches than Android users? That’s a version of the larger question about why iOS users might be doing more searches generally than Android users? (Once again, these data don’t reflect or measure activity in apps.)

One partial explanation might be that iOS includes iPads, where there is a lot of search activity. But that doesn’t fully explain these findings.

Mobile vs. PC Local Search Volumes (BIA/Kelsey Forecast)

Source: BIA/Kelsey (2012)

In some categories such as restaurants and travel, mobile searches represent 15 – 20 percent or more of overall query volumes. There can be no dispute that mobile search is now a huge phenomenon. But will it eclipse PC local search query volume in three years?

Let’s think out loud a bit, shall we?

50 Billion Local Queries on the PC

Using the Google 20 percent figure as a guide we can estimate that in March there were approximately 3.7 billion local searches on the PC in the US. In the absence of significant month over month growth that would translate into roughly 44 billion annual local queries coming through US search engines on the PC. But let’s assume modest local query growth and say there will be something on the order of 50 billion local queries on search engines in the US in 2012. (The number could be higher of course.)

Now, how many local-mobile search queries are there?

Answering that question depends on whether we include app-based local search (e.g., Yelp, Foursquare, yellow pages apps, Urbanspoon, etc.). Data from comScore, Localeze and 15 Miles finds that half of US mobile consumers (survey respondents) say they use apps at least some of the time for local search. However, we don’t know the frequency or the volume of in-app search because no one is really tracking those numbers today.

Let’s limit the definition of “mobile search” to browser based search through one of the major US search engines. However right now Google represents about 95 percent of the total “mobile search” market in the US.

12 Billion Local Queries on Smartphones

If there are roughly 125 million smartphone owners in the US (50 percent of 250 million mobile subscribers) and a large number of smartphone owners do an average 20 mobile searches per month, then there are something like 30 billion mobile searches annually right now in the US. (Let’s leave out tablets of this discussion.) If 40 percent of that overall mobile search volume is local, that would mean roughly 12 billion annual local searches on mobile devices. (This number may be slightly inflated today.)

We can assume growth in smartphone penetration and some growth in per-person mobile search query volume — though this assumption is a wild card for several reasons. It also may be a bit risky to assume that the percentage of overall mobile search that is local will continue to climb significantly, though it could reach 50 percent (which is what Microsoft says it is today on Bing).

Let’s assume smartphone penetration reaches 75 percent (say 187 million people) and each person does 40 mobile searches per month (doubling our per-person monthly query assumption). That translates into 90 billion annual mobile queries. If the local percentage of mobile search volume grows to 50 percent, we’d have 45 billion annual local-mobile search queries.

That event would get us pretty close to PC-mobile local search parity, if there weren’t dramatic PC local search growth. However a number of factual assumptions must come to pass. And the future is not guaranteed to look like the past.

What If the Paradigm Shifts?

The proliferation of mobile apps (whether native or HTML5) combined with the rise of Siri and other voice assistants could mean that browser-based mobile search doesn’t grow much over time. Google has cited figures of 130 percent year over year mobile search growth. But there are reasons to believe that the current PC search model on the smartphone small screen will be supplanted, at least to some degree in the relatively near future.

More than a couple of years out it all starts to get very speculative, since mobile is evolving so rapidly. However, regardless of whether the BIA forecast comes true in three years — I don’t think it can without including in-app search volumes — it’s certainly directionally accurate. And one day in the relatively near future it’s clear that people will be using mobile devices to find local information as much or more than their laptops and desktop PCs.

Below is a comparison of Bing’s Mall of America interior map and Google Map’s version of the same site (the Android version offers the interior the PC version does not):

Clearly the Bing experience above is more desirable. In New York, Bing Maps offers this kind of treatment in and around Times Square. Any area marked in purple contains an interior map or store identification.

This kind of presentation adds utility but also threatens clutter if overused. Another company called CityMaps is taking a similar approach to the above and illustrates the latter danger in my opinion.

Additional changes and improvements being rolled out on Bing Maps include the following:

• Identification of popular businesses and locations (for local discovery)
• Addition of semi-transparent 3D buildings (this is a feature that Google Maps has offered for some time)
• Faster zoom

Apparently not.

Roughly a month ago I spoke with Marc Brombert, the CEO of Implied Intelligence. His company provides a range of data-related services (e.g., enhancement, cleansing, de-duplication) to marketers and publishers. At the conclusion of our call I suggested that Implied Intelligence test the accuracy and completeness of the business listings data on several of the leading local search sites.

Surprise: Yellow pages beat Google for local search

Several weeks later Implied Intelligence sent me the results of its test. They’re a bit unexpected and illuminating. Google, which has probably devoted more effort and resources to local search than any of its competitors, did not come out on top in the test. Overall it placed third. Two yellow pages sites beat it.

Implied Intelligence crawled and hand checked 1,000 independent local business websites in the US (no chains or franchises were included in the test) and compared the information it captured to the data contained on the following sites:

• Bing Maps
• Citysearch
• Dexknows
• Foursquare
• Google Maps
• Mapquest
• Superpages
• Yellowpages.com (YP.com)
• Yelp

The criteria and results

Implied Intelligence evaluated and scored the local search competitors on the basis of the following criteria:

• Coverage (was the listing present)
• Number of duplicates
• Accuracy of information
• Richness of information (presence of additional information beyond business name, address and phone)

The first table below offers a comparison among these sites in terms of basic listings coverage and accuracy. The yellow highlighting indicates the winner in each category.

The table reflects that Google Maps had the most complete coverage: 80 percent of the 1,000 local listings were present. No site had 100 percent of the 1,000 listings. Foursquare had the worst coverage at only 16.7 percent.

In terms of error percentages, yellow pages site Superpages outperformed the others. YP.com had the fewest duplicate listings in the test.

In terms of enhanced information, YP.com was the winner. Reviews and check-in data were not considered because Implied Intelligence felt this didn’t allow for an “apples to apples” comparison across sites. However, had reviews content been included Yelp, Google and Foursquare would likely have fared better.

Superpages the overall winner

Overall Superpages was the winner, followed by YP.com with Google Maps coming in third. Foursquare was the overall loser. However Yelp also didn’t fare that well either.

To many people these results will be a surprise. (They were to me to some degree.) And some people may charge bias. While I didn’t supervise the test and was not involved in its design I can report that Implied Intelligence has no agenda here. I would and do take the results at face value.

For ZIP code targeting, advertisers will be able to add up to 1,000 postal codes at a time. They’ll also be able to view campaign performance stats by ZIP code.

Location Insertion will let advertisers create a single ad for all locations, and AdWords will then insert the city name, postal code, and phone number of the appropriate location when the ad is displayed. These parameters can be inserted into the ad title, text, display URL and destination URL. For example, if the ad text entered said “Find a location near you in {lb.city:Local},” a user searching from Cleveland would see Cleveland in place of the parameter.

Location insertion will work even if other extensions — like sitelinks — take precedence over your location extensions.

Google has also changed the wording around its advanced location targeting, apparently in response to travel advertisers. Previously, if someone in New York was searching for “Flights to Las Vegas,” ads targeted to New York would not appear, because the query indicated the person was interested in Las Vegas. With the change, advertisers may now select “People in my targeted location,” to show ads to people in that location, no matter what their search query seems to indicate.

Old Advanced Targeting

New Advanced Targeting

The company is also using additional location signals on the Google Display Network. Previously, only the likely physical location of the user was utilized in targeting. Now, Google will also look at the content on the page — when it seems to be tied to a certain location — and target ads accordingly. The default is to show ads to people “in” or “viewing pages about” the targeted location, but advertisers may change this setting.

This also seems to be most useful for the travel vertical, as a person could be in one location — in Texas, for example — researching what to do on a ski vacation in Colorado. With the new targeting, this person could receive ads targeted both to Texas and to Colorado.

Advanced location exclusion is also changing in response to user feedback. The wording on the options has changed, as has the default. Previously, “Exclude by physical location only,” was the default, but now the more restrictive option — now “People in, searching for, or viewing pages about my excluded location” — is the default.

Google has added estimated traffic predictions by day and time for even some of the most basic roads. For example, here is looking at the Gramercy Park area of New York City on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at noon. I’ve made an animated GIF to show how the traffic changes by day even at the same time of the day:

Google said this feature is now available today on most road level views. This was expanded from Google adding it to highway traffic.

To try this yourself, type in your starting and ending points to get directions in Google Maps (or just go to a location in Google Maps), enable the traffic layer on the upper right hand side of the viewport, and then click “change” in the legend to switch from live traffic to Typical Traffic for these roads.

Related Stories:

• Traffic Estimates Return To Google Maps
• Google Maps Removes In-Traffic Travel Estimates
• Google Maps For Android Lets You Download Maps For Offline Use
• Court Says No, You Can’t Sue Google For Bad Walking Directions
• Two Mobile Location Privacy Bills Introduced In Congress
• Google Gathers Your Map Activity Under “My Places” Tab
• Google City Sites May Compete With Yelp, Online Yellow Pages
• Google Adds Business Characteristics To Maps Listings
• Search Market Share Static, 2.2 Billion Local Queries On Google
• Google Adds Zip Code Outlines To Map One Box
• Bing Maps To Be Powered (Replaced) By Nokia?
• Survey: 60% Of Consumers More Likely To Consider Or Contact Businesses With Images In Local Search Results

We could do the same again right now, because Google has tried to top itself with another round of April Fool’s Day jokes that pretty well span the globe of Google’s international properties. Below is a recap of Google’s (and a few others) pranks, and we’ll do our best to update this as the day goes along.

Google Racing: Self-Driving Cars Hit NASCAR

The main joke at the moment is Google’s “announcement” of a partnership with NASCAR called Google Racing, which brings Google’s self-driving cars to NASCAR race tracks “by the middle of next season.”

There’s also a faux news video about Google Racing (with no embed code – the cruelest joke of all!) starring Jeff Gordon and a couple other NASCAR drivers, not to mention Sergey Brin pretending to be Google’s first NASCAR driver … or whatever you call the person who doesn’t actually drive the car.

And if you go to Google.com, the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button has been renamed “I’m Steering Lucky” and there’s a link to the Google Racing microsite.

Google Maps In 8-Bit For NES

Google’s pranks began early this morning with a blog post announcing that Google Japan has created an 8-bit version of Google Maps for the original Nintendo Entertainment System.

You can relive all your favorite 1980s graphics by clicking the “Quest” button in the upper right corner on maps.google.com.

Google Street Roo

In Australia, where Google Street View cars and trikes can’t get to remote areas of the continent, Google says it’ll use kangaroos with mini-cameras mounted on their noggins to photograph the Australian outback. They’re calling it Google Street Roo. Hopefully the 1,000-plus kangaroos won’t mistakenly collect any personal data via wifi while they’re hopping across Australia.

Google China: Underwater Search

I said it was worldwide, right? Well, even Google China has gotten in the act with an underwater search gag. It’s more like a Google doodle than a prank, though.

Google’s Really Advanced Search

Speaking of search, this one will probably go over well with our audience. Google’s really advanced search page has some pretty funny options, like this:

You can also narrow your results based on what font the page uses, what textured background the page has and which “embarrassing grammatical faux pas” is found on the page. If you’re into SEO, you’ll like this one. You may even find yourself wishing that the page actually worked.

Google Search: Weather Control

Another search gag: Google Weather Control. Type in any weather-related search (like “seattle weather”) and you can make the weather anything you want it to be. You can turn Seattle into Phoenix, if you’d like.

Google AdWords: Click-to-Teleport

The AdWords team has a new extension called Click-to-Teleport that lets “potential customers to instantly teleport to your business location directly from a search ad.”

The YouTube Collection

YouTube’s annual April Fool’s Day prank is the YouTube Collection — all of YouTube on DVD. Once you order, 175 trucks will deliver the DVDs right to your door. Oh, just watch the video. Make your checks payable to “Matt McGee” if you’re planning to order.

Play Music In Google Analytics

I’m not seeing this (yet?) in my Google Analytics account, but this Aussie blog says there’s a little music icon on the Visitors Overview page in Google Analytics. You can play a piano or sitar while enjoying (or bemoaning) your website’s performance.

Google Chrome Multitask Mode

The Google Chrome team thinks one mouse/hand isn’t enough for web browsing, so they’ve launched Multitask Mode — two mice/hands at once.

Gmail Tap

Gmail Tap converts your keyboard from 26 letters to just two — dots and dashes, just like Morse code.

Google Fiber Bar

Forget that fiber optic network thing. Google Fiber is actually just a fiber-filled candy bar that helps you be up to 100 times more productive than ever before.

That’s Not All…

There are other search-related April Fool’s Day gags, perhaps my favorite of which is Google Nigeria, which jokingly asks you to input your bank account number so you can “search for inheritance.”

Don’t be alarmed: the search box just runs a normal Google search (not that you’d actually put your bank account number in there, anyway, right?) and, while this is NOT an official Google gag, it also doesn’t appear to be run by some Nigerian prince. (It’s a production from 85by55.com.)

There’s also TheGoogleButton.com, which lets you make a fake Google search result page with whatever website (and title/snippet) you want in the No. 1 spot.

Flickr has announced that all photos can now be seen in the 1980s style “Atkinson dither,” accessible via a small button in the lower right part of any photo page.

And last, and probably not least, the folks at Reddit announced “reddit timeline,” which brings a touch of Facebook to the proceedings and is pretty funny — especially when you click on “1970s” and get the animated rainbow header, along with “news” about Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the war in Vietnam.

And now that April Fool’s Day has actually begun … time to sign-off, at least until the next prank comes along.

Postscript:

As expected, we have a few more pranks to add and they all come from Google. Here you go!

GoRo: Google Mobile

Google Mobile has introduced a program called GoRo — the name is a play on the actual “Go Mo” campaign — that encouraged business owners to learn how to optimize their websites for rotary phones. Why? Because “technology is cyclical.”

Google Analytics: Interplanetary Reporting

Google Analytics jokingly wrote about a sneak preview of “interplanetary reports” that let website owners “understand visitor activities from neighboring stars and planets.”

Interplanetary reports will be rolled out in 2030, Google says, “when we anticipate local space travel becomes widespread.” Heh. Watch them be right about that part.

Google AdWords: Planetary Targeting

The AdWords folks didn’t stop just with Click-to-Teleport (see above). Oh no, there’s more. If you login to your AdWords account and edit location settings on one of your campaigns, you’ll see a joke about being able to do planetary targeting.

And yes, if you follow through and type “Mars,” for examplem, it shows up as one of the targeting options. There’s even a fake support page explaining how it all “works.”

At least I think it’s fake. Who can tell anymore?