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Google Maps adds local suggestions

Company adds local suggestions to its maps, creating location-based results when you're searching for a specific type of business.

Lance Whitney Contributing Writer
Lance Whitney is a freelance technology writer and trainer and a former IT professional. He's written for Time, CNET, PCMag, and several other publications. He's the author of two tech books--one on Windows and another on LinkedIn.
Lance Whitney

Google Maps is trying to make it easier to find businesses right around the block.

On Thursday, Google spread local search suggestions for Google Maps to more parts of the world. When you type in a kind of business and a city name in the "Search Maps" box, Google will offer ideas for places based on the location.

If you type in sushi and Tokyo, for example, suggestions for restaurants in Japan's capital filter up. If you type in sushi and your city's name, names of sushi restaurants citywide show up. Or if Google's map is already pointing to your neighborhood and you type in sushi, suggestions for the very closest restaurants pop up.

For those who sign in to their Google account, the site will keep track of the activity in Google Maps and display suggestions from past searches.

Google had already been testing the suggestion feature for Google Maps in Germany, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

The new feature is now also available in Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, United States, and United Kingdom--and in eight languages. Google said it plans to deliver the feature to the rest of the globe soon.

Last week, Google added more local search suggestions to its core search engine.