I have been tracking the WebmasterWorld thread on the July Google changes and a lot of people are now discussing how Google is treating location specific queries differently.

By that I mean, the consensus in the thread is that there was a ranking adjustment for location specific queries. For example, searchers for real estate or travel specific searches that are highly dependent on location specific search criteria.

The feeling is that Google is now weighing links from localized sites higher than random links. Tedster, the WebmasterWorld administrator, explains this well in post number 3956975:

Of course, many SEOs have been aiming for links like this for a while and Google continuously tries to make links mean more, in terms of determining relevancy.

Have you noticed this?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.