Geo-targeting is hard
Here’s a screenshot of a Google Maps search I found in the traffic log:
As you can see, the search for ‘”Public Garden” in pennsylvaniA’ threw Google for a bit of a loop. It clearly discarded the state of Pennsylvania as an option and presumably went for a Public Garden close to Pennsylvania Avenue (or Pennsylvania something in New York City), yet pulled up third-party (“user”) content that it recognized as specific to Boston. Not only is Goolg etripped up by the search, but local-content aggregator Outside.In also doesn’t quite know what to do with “Boston Public Garden.”
What you can’t see on the screenshot – because I had to crop it to keep it legible – is that the AdWords ad on the page assumed the search was relevant to Boston. I don’t know if that was based on the search or on the user content that Google returned.
Below is a cropped screenshot of the map with the third-party content inserted:
