Google on Thursday will introduce capabilities for U.S. and international advertisers to reach Web surfers by their city of origin, the search site’s latest push for more ad sales.

Last month, the Web search giant officially unveiled Google Local, a service that helps Web surfers find local businesses by typing in a search term and a city name. It also lets advertisers reach customers by their region, or within about 210 designated market areas (DMAs) in the United States.

Now, Google Local is circling in closer to consumers, tracking Web surfers’ location down to the city level. That means that local advertisers (in the United States) can tailor promotions to hit people in the same city during a specific Web search, i.e., New York sushi restaurants. Advertisers can also tailor ads to appear on Google and its partner Web sites only when a visitor originates within a defined radius of their businesses’ physical address, or what Google calls customized targeting.

For the first time, customized local targeting will be available to international advertisers.

“This is a new way for small business advertisers to step in at a level that’s meaningful to them, which is around their business,” said Sukhinder Singh, general manager of Google Local.

Mountain View, California based Google has been rapidly expanding local search during the past eight months. Financial analysts and industry executives say geographically targeted search listings are prime real estate for local advertising, an estimated $12 billion annual business in the United States. In 2004, less than $50 million of that market will go toward ads related to local Net searches, but over time the dollars will find their way to the virtual world, analysts say.

Google rivals Yahoo and MSN are developing local targeting services for advertisers. CitySearch local city guides began offering a similar service for advertisers last year.

Singh said that Google will soon begin displaying sponsored listings on the Google Local specialty site, Local.google.com.

Source: News.com