Updated GoogleBar features new UI and targeted sponsored results
March 18th, 2009 | Published in Google Code
The GoogleBar, a control in the Maps API to allow users to search the map for local businesses, landmarks and points of interest, has just launched a new version. In addition to a greatly improved UI, the new GoogleBar includes advertising targeted to the user's searches. This new feature will improve the user experience by providing targeted and relevant sponsored results, and you can benefit by sharing in the revenue of including these results on your site. You can see the new GoogleBar, together with ads, below:
As shown above, the new version of the GoogleBar contains advertising. Profiting from the advertising personally is as easy as signing up for an AdSense account and including your AdSense publisher ID when you create the GoogleBar. See the recent Maps API Blog post for details. Whether you already have a map on your webpage or not, it only takes a few lines of code to embed a fully searchable map into your site - the GoogleBar documentation will tell you everything you need to know.
The GoogleBar is built upon our low-level Local Search Control. For those interested in peeking under the covers, check out the Local Search Control documentation and Code Playground examples.
Questions or comments? Please visit the AJAX API and Maps API discussion groups.