Internet marketing experts say that a significant chunk of web searches contain “local intent.” I’ve found figures ranging from 20 to 40 percent. In other words, lots of people are going to Google looking for products, services, and experiences in their geographical vicinity.

Starfall Graphics’ local-search listing

The big search engines know this, and in their competition to provide the highest-quality search results, they’ve created systems to provide highly relevant results to people searching with local intent. They’ve set up localized directories and made their own sites location-aware. That means that when you visit search engines, they check your IP address to get an idea where you are in order to tailor search results …[more]