• by Shankar Gupta , April 6, 2005

Google, which purchased satellite mapping company Keyhole in October, has linked the service to its mapping and local search functions, the search giant announced this week.

The new feature, which went live Monday night, gives users the opportunity to view a Keyhole satellite photo of their search queries. For example, a user who searches for "Empire State Building" in New York City is served a "satellite" link; clicking through gives the user a shot of the famous New York landmark, casting its shadow over midtown.

The idea, Keyhole General Manager John Hanke wrote on the Google Blog, is to let consumers see photos of what they're searching for--the beach in beachfront when looking for a hotel, or what the freeway exit on the way there looks like. When getting directions from Google Maps, Keyhole can overlay the path to the destination over the satellite photo.

In the past, Keyhole had been a paid service, for which Google charged users $29.95 (down from $69.95 when Keyhole was independent). As of now, the service is free.

While the feature has aesthetic appeal, Jupiter Research analyst Niki Scevak said he was unconvinced that the feature provides a significant edge over search competitors like Yahoo! and AOL.

"From an appearance point of view, it's something that can certainly differentiate it from AOL or Yahoo! but from a utility point of view I think the value is yet to be seen," Scevak said. "It does have some use, but in terms of helping consumers make decisions or helping with their search, I think it has somewhat limited value."

Google is not the first major search engine to incorporate images into its local search results. Amazon's A9 Yellow Pages local search incorporates block-by-block photos of businesses and residences. If a user searches for a coffee shop recommended by a friend, they can not only get the address, but also a photo of the storefront. Amazon accomplished this by equipping a truck with a digital camera and driving around thousands of miles of streets in several major American cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago. Both AOL and Yahoo! have maps features--the former powered by MapQuest, the latter by a proprietary engine. Neither has incorporated digital mapping into their offering yet.