Google's deal with Clear Channel, the number one US Radio Network, which allows Google to access five percent of the network's collective air time, at will, makes a lot of sense for a search engine, online-ad driven company.

Increasingly, Google's refinements are aimed at serving, organic search results which are local rather than international. When you are looking for an expert SEO company it may not be much of an issue to find one based in Sydney, Australia, when you are living in Perth, Scotland. The net makes distance meaningless. But this is not the same story when you are searching for takeout Pizza.

For this reason, Google's search engine has been deploying subtle refinements which help it identify the searcher's geolocation and then serve up ads which are suitable for that location. A "Pizza Factory" search in Google.com will produce different results to one in Google.co.uk and an even more different result in Google.ru.

Why does this affect or is reflected by Google's foray into radio? Because, radio, like search engines has a national network which is focused locally. From a business model point of view this makes perfect sense, Google have an affinity for it and their expansion into radio where adverts are driven by local advertisers as opposed to national advertising companies is another indication of the directions the search engine algorithm's is developing towards.