Google, Yahoo, and the other search engines have revolutionized how we perform our jobs, how we learn, how we interact with each other, and basically have changed the way we live our lives.

Today there are well over 10 billion unique searches done each month, and that’s just in the United States! Of those searches, the majority have local intent. Meaning most searches are performed by people looking for local products, stores, services, or locations.

On Yahoo alone, 100 Million unique visitors per month search with “local intent” according to Frazier Miller, GM of Yahoo Local. We can extrapolate that there are HALF A BILLION unique Local searches per month on Google, based on Yahoo’s ~15% market share. Google and Yahoo have made dramatic shifts in how they return results in 2008, and all the trends point to Local. 
 
On top of that data, respected technology experts around the world think the world of mobile search is ready to take off in 2009 and 2010. In some places around the world, like Japan, many of these technologies are already in place. They’re in use even in the United States, with more sophisticated devices like the iPhone. Mobile searches are primarily going to pull their results from Local Search Engines.