Location Targeting will be available from this week in the US, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the UK. It will afford advertisers the chance to have their sponsored search links come up only for people who are searching from a particular city or region.
The option for local searches has been built into the existing AdWords system, with the searcher's IP or computer address being used to determine their location.
Google is anticipating the service will be used by local businesses only wanting to reach customers within their region, as well as national companies with local franchises.
It is the latest in a series of changes at the search engine this year, as Google faces up to increasing rivalry from MSN and Yahoo! As well as redesigning and introducing its Froogle shopping service, Google is planning a new email service called GMail.
However, GMail has run into several problems even before it has launched as it comes up against privacy barriers and tussles for the ownership of the brand name.
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