Google is an Internet search engine giant that provides various kinds of search options like images, maps, etc. Local search is an option that provides the user with results about the place or geographical location associated with the query.

Google uses a structured database wherein searches can be geographically constrained. These local search results are determined by associating the query keywords to appropriate map locations in terms of postal address or even latitude and longitude.

The local search runs on an algorithm associating the query keywords appropriately to a map location and then optimizing the search result to provide reasonable results.

Optimization of local search results is not so efficient when the query is ambiguous or long. However, this option is very helpful to people looking for directions to particular place or monument and to people who seek geographical details about various locations. Nevertheless, Google does not provide a facility to delete or remove a result from the set of search results, which will be helpful to improve results.

In a nutshell, whenever a user provides a query seeking local search results, the user is provided with results like a map with 10 pins or locations pertaining to the most related top businesses related to the query keyword.

The results are plotted as circles and the most relevant results associated to map locations are displayed in the left hand pane. The local search results in Google notes down the IP address of the user and the location qualifiers are used to determine the local results, say a pack of ten, pertaining to the query furnished by the user.

It is observed that when a local geographical qualifier is used, local results were more reasonable in many test cases. Google is trying to improve its algorithms to provide better local search results. In many test cases, results are unrelated to the query when the query is ambiguous, long and complicated.