Using Google's Location Syntax for Election Information

Google News, at http://news.google.com, looks very much like Google and works very much like Google. You enter a few keywords and get your search results. But Google News is different in that it has a few special search syntax that allow you to really narrow your search. One of the syntax is called location:. In this blog post I'm going to give you some pointers on using location: to get election information.

(And just as a disclaimer, the names I'm using here are examples only and shouldn't be considered endorsements. Inform yourself and vote for who you like!)

The location syntax works like this: enter location: and the postal code of a state, and you'll get back only news stories from resources in that state. You can use it by itself -- if you search Google News for location:nc you'll get a variety of stories from just sources in North Carolina.

The problem is you'll get over 93 THOUSAND of them, so you want to narrow that down a bit. For election purposes, you can do that by entering a couple of candidate names. For example, because Obama and Huckabee won the caucus in Iowa, you might want to try obama huckabee location:nc .

That's still going to get you over 350 results, however. You can narrow your results further by searching for the names of candidates who aren't getting as much mainstream media coverage. kucinich "ron paul" location:nc brings a much different and much smaller -- only 21 items -- set of results.

Let's focus on the upcoming primary in Florida. Perhaps you're less interested in election news in general and you just want to follow one candidate. You could combine Google's location syntax with its intitle: syntax and find only those stories which have your candidates name in the title AND which are located in Florida. Try this on for size:

intitle:"john edwards" location:fl

You could also search for just his last name in the title, but be sure to search for some other keyword that makes it clear you're trying to find election news (Edwards is a fairly common name):

intitle:edwards primary location:fl

You can also search for political party names in addition to candidate names. Sometimes it's fun to search for one party name, and then search for a candidate from a completely different party. All within one state's worth of stories, of course:

"green party" romney location:fl

That example search is so narrow it actually doesn't bring ANY results!

Interested not in candidates but in topics? Try searching for the name of an election topic, then the word primary.

"housing crisis" primary location:fl

As you can see, Google's location syntax, combined with some keyword searching, makes it very easy to get a whole state's worth of stories on topics and people that interest YOU. That equals one informed voter!

Let me show you one more party trick. Not only does the location syntax work for the US, but it works for other countries as well -- instead of typing in an abbreviation you type in the full name of the country. Wondering what US election coverage looks like in Ireland? Try this search:

(mccain OR clinton) primary location:ireland