So you are checking your website visitor report and you see someone found your site by typing in a non-geographic search like “Family Law Lawyer” in Google. In the past, this probrably would have been a unqualified search since the chance of the searcher originating from Arizona would have been remote. Not so today. Increasingly, Google is trying to deliver personalized search results based on search history and the location of the searcher. Therefore, my search results will likely vary from someone in Minnesota performing the exact same search.

Eventually the goal of online advertising will be to deliver personalized messages for each potential searcher/customer. David W. Kenny, the chairman and chief executive of Digitas, goes even further; “The plan is to build a global digital ad network that uses offshore labor to create thousands of versions of ads. Then, using data about consumers and computer algorithms, the network will decide which advertising message to show at which moment to every person who turns on a computer, cellphone or – eventually – a television.”