Google's New Carousel Puts More Focus on Local Search



Google continues its focus on Local Search results with the introduction of a new Carousel photo display feature – a horizontal scrolling selection of photos at the top of the results page.

Predominantly used for local results for restaurants, hotels and retailers – and soon to spread to various other categories – the Carousel will replace the “7- Pack.”

Carousel results feature an attractive thumbnail photo along with business ratings and review counts. Rankings are determined based on standard Google local results.

The big question now is how well will users adapt to clicking on a thumbnail photo versus instinctively going to the search results below.