‘Category’ and ‘Neighbourhood’ in Google SERPS

Further to some observations I made a couple of weeks ago, Google seems to have refined the local search even more and now features a ‘category’ and ‘neighbourhood’ section above the local places list in the web results. This is an interesting move since these links were located under the local address listings a couple of weeks ago (See our other post on Google local SERPS).

Here are some images for ‘shops in Manchester’ and ‘Manchester hotels’:

It’s by no means perfect, for example under the neighbourhood category for Manchester hotels, there’s a link for ‘greater’, which probably means ‘Greater Manchester’. But what’s interesting is that Google recognises shopping centres for the search shops in Manchester: see the ‘Arndale Centre’ link under the neighbourhood category. Preston shops also brings up St George’s Shopping Centre.

Some results differ from place to place, and Google will provide either ‘florists’ or ‘flower shops’, depending on the place; or sometimes ‘wedding dress shops’ or ‘bridal shops’. And what’s really clever is a search for restaurants in specific places. Search for a restaurant in a coastal town, and you’ll get a link for ‘seafood’ (Penzance or Falmouth restaurants).