
Google’s Popular Times Patent
Google Maps helps people navigate from place to place, and has been tracking how busy places are.
In order for it to work effectively, it’s helpful if it can track the location history of the device that someone may be using to help them navigate.
It’s interesting how Google tracks your location history. I’ve noticed that after I take a photo near a business, Google will sometimes ask if I would like to upload that photo to the business listing for that business. Sometimes the photos aren’t relevant to the business I’ve taken them near, such as a photo of an Agave Plant that I took near a Seaside Market in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California (it has nothing at all to do with the Sea Side Market.)
Google seems to like the idea of saving location history for people who might search for different types of businesses, and a recent patent that I wrote about described how Google might start using distances from a location history as a ranking signal (as opposed to a static distance from a desktop computer.) I wrote about that in Google to Use Distance from Mobile Location History for Ranking in Local Search.
Continue reading “Popular Times for Businesses Learned by Looking at Location History”