This summer has been a whirlwind of family visits and celebrations for me. And my favorite thing to do in a new town is discover local favorites—ideally the best coffee shop and the best local ice cream. In Champaign, Illinois, I discovered delicious Kaldi’s coffee at Harvest Market, and tried a super indulgent Cookie Dough Snowstorm at the more than 60-year-old Jarling’s Custard Cup. In Kansas City, Missouri, I discovered The Rieger Hotel’s restaurant, where a giant tray of grilled veggies delivered smiles to the entire group. And I discovered all of these places using my phone.

Location matters more, yet is stated less

Looking for something nearby—a coffee shop, noodle restaurant, shoe store—is one of the most common searches we do. In fact, nearly one-third of all mobile searches are related to location [download].1

In September 2015, we shared that “near me” or “nearby” searches on Google had grown 2X in the previous year.2 Now, just two years later, we see that behavior has continued to change. Make no mistake, people still use ”near me” to discover places of interest around them. But we're now seeing a shift toward dropping location qualifiers (like zip codes, neighborhoods, and “near me” phrasing) in local searches, because people know that the results will automatically be relevant to their location—thanks to their phone. It’s kind of magical. In fact, this year, search volume for local places without the qualifier “near me” has actually outgrown comparable searches that do include ”near me [download]."3 Over the last two years, comparable searches without "near me" have grown by 150% [download].4