Google Adds Location & Location Icon to Search Results
Google is testing a new icon in the search results to show the specific location of a search result, in addition to showing a location icon, similar to the map icon used on Google Maps. It seems to be used primarily for news results in the regular organic search results.
Here is what it looks like:
In each of these news results, the yellow location icon appears, along with the specific city the news result is from. Google is just including the city, and not including the state or country. All of the examples are followed by the date of the article as well.
These results are not local results, nor are they part of Google News results. These are regular organic search results with the addition of the local icon and the city name.
It is not clear how Google is pulling the city name information from these search results. It does not appear to be Schema based. But the location as a keyword appears numerous times on the pages showing the icon.
The yellow icon at the start of the description definitely makes these news results stand out on a page significantly.
This seems to be a very limited test, as I cannot replicate it.
Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn’t sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.
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