Google couldn’t buy Yelp. So its going to kill it by making its local business pages amazing.

The company announced more tools today for local businesses to have a stronger presence on Google and Google Maps.

Google is changing the name of its “Local business center” to the less wordy, but equally uninspired, “Google Places.” (Sounds familiar, no?)

In a blog post, John Hanke, VP Google Maps, says “One out of five searches on Google are related to location.” He says he wants businesses getting found easily on Google.

Googles objective here is to pick up more ad revenue from all these businesses by giving them a place to send people who click on Google search ads.

Heres the new features its adding: (more…)