AOL Local Search Beta 2 helps users find a local business or location by following three steps.

Type in a query term for the location you are looking for in the search field. Pick a location by entering a city, state or zip code. You can also enter a specific street address, which will search for locations nearest to that address.

AOL Local will locate and map a list of matches for the search term that was entered. AOL has incorporated CityGuide, MapQuest and AOL Search into one interface. The features are comparable to Yahoo Local and Google Maps.

When you find the location you are looking for on the map you can click on it and receive information along with driving directions. You can also use your mouse to click and drag the map moving it to other locations.

AOL says they have fixed the following issues:

Navigation away from the Beta tab-TheAOL Local Search beta is now yet fully integrated with the general AOL Search page. In earlier versions, if you clicked onto another of the AOL Search tabs (e.g., clicked onto the Web tab, the Local BETA tab would no longer appear. This is no longer the case.

*IMPROVED* Relevancy of results to a search term- We have resolved some of the issues resulting in some terms generating odd results. For example searching for "Target" may result in Target store locations in your area being found; it also might result in the FBI Building being found because the FBI building has a "target" range in its basement. While this has improved, please continue to file bug reports on searches you perform that do not generate the results you expect.

Address search problems-Several of the cases that generated strange search results (e.g., city names with spaces or hyphens, use or non-use of commas in addresses, etc.) have been addressed. While this has improved, please continue to file bug reports on searches you perform that do not generate the results you expect.

Printing-Search results and maps should now print correctly using printer friendly pages.

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