AdWords results in Google Local

I talked a couple weeks ago about the obviously different algorithms at play in Google’s main SERPs and local SERPs. Not mentioned was that the AdWords system also often displays different ads when the same search is done in both places.

Stacy Williams asked about this apparent anomaly on the SEW Forums yesterday, and an AdWords rep. chimed in with an explanation:

Google Maps is part of the Google AdWords search network, so advertisers must opt their campaigns into the search network in order to have their ads be eligible to appear on Google Maps. This option leads to some differences in the ads that appear on Google.com versus on Google Maps. In addition, users explicitly search in a certain geographic area when using Google Maps; we use this geographic information to target the ads on Google Maps instead of a user’s IP address, which is used on Google.com.

That’s good stuff to know, and the same logic described in the last sentence there — the use of physical location targeting vs. IP-based targeting — is surely something to consider for the display of local results in organic listings, too.