Universal search - not always universally relevant

Universal search is a hot topic currently with various pundits hypothesising over the ramifications for SEO and the opportunities that universal search may provide.I generally love Google and the continuous innovation they bring to the search space. However I have spotted a few bugs in the new(ish) map based results that make me wonder if they have pushed out universal results a little too quickly.Being a Kiwi (I won’t mention the rugby if you don’t) I use Google.co.nz occasionally for various work and personal searches. I was doing some research when I came across the following map-based result.

As you can see Google has thrown a map based result for my query “Birkenhead property”. Unfortunately the map that has been thrown is for Birkenhead in England as opposed to Birkenhead in Auckland. I wondered if the results could be getting screwy because I was searching from Australia so I replicated the search via a proxy and the same results appeared.

I then found another result where Google had thrown a Canadian map-based result for another New Zealand suburb + keyword search.

Now, none of these searches are particularly high volume (compared to say a search for “hotels” on Google.com) but when it comes to the SERP’s irrelevant results like these are likely to frustrate the average user.

It’s also worth noting a recent study from a US automotive site Autobytel (summarised here) that found that “7 out of 10 Americans experience search engine fatigue”. Based on the above map-based results I would suggest 10 out of 10 Google.co.nz users would experience search engine fatigue with the above results.