Google Says “Near Me” Searches Have Doubled This Year

Search queries that contain a location qualifier such as “nearby” or “near me” have doubled in the past year, according to Google Trends data from March. Eighty percent of those searches come from mobile devices.

Now that you know this, you’ll start to be cognizant of how often “nearby” and “near me” variations of search queries pop up in Google auto-suggest on your phone.

Google first released this data last week with the launch of a new mobile ad product specifically designed around these types of queries. The new Nearby Business listings strip out the typical copy shown in text ads and feature buttons to get directions or click to call the business. Google’s Chief business officer Omid Kordestani repeated the stat during an interview at Re/Code’s Code Conference.

Kordestani also confirmed reports that a buy button will start appearing soon on select search ads. To see what else Kordestani discussed with ReCode’s Kara Swisher, see our live blog coverage on Marketing Land.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Ginny Marvin

Ginny Marvin was Third Door Media’s former Editor-in-Chief (October 2018 to December 2020), running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, MarTech and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.