WASHINGTON – Small business access to government information took another substantial leap forward today with the addition of new state and local search capabilities on Business.gov – the official business link to the U.S. government. In “Round Two” Refresh, New Search Engine Helps Small Businesses Comply with State and Local Regulations.

Round One focused on significantly expanded content along with new federal government search capabilities from Google™ that allowed business owners to search for federal information on programs, services and regulations affecting small businesses.

With today’s announcement – Round Two – small business owners can search for information from state and local government Web sites, as well as federal Web sites, from a single search box.  The new search engine intelligently reads the words a user types in the search box, and returns only the most relevant Web sites.  If a business owner types in “starting a business in Seattle, Wash.” the relevant results will be returned from the city of Seattle and King County, Wash., Web sites.*  The unique new service improves general search services by delivering results specific to doing business in a particular geographic area, saving business owners’ time by getting to the right information more quickly.  

“These new search offerings make it easier for businesses to learn about doing business in specific localities,” said Nancy Sternberg, program manager of the Business Gateway Initiative.  “Business.gov improves upon general purpose search engines by understanding the intent of the user and providing results from the most pertinent, official state and local government Web sites.”

Sternberg adds, “Try it yourself: Go to www.business.gov  and find the box in the upper right that says ‘Try Our New Search Engine’ and click ‘Read More About Search.’  On the next page, type in ‘business license,’ type the name of your city, and see the results.  

Business.gov is the official business link to the U.S. Government.  Business.gov is managed by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) in a partnership with 21 other federal agencies. This partnership, known as Business Gateway, serves as an incubator of technologies designed to improve the delivery of services and information to the nation’s small business community.  Business.gov provides a single access point to government services and information to help the nation's businesses with their operations.    

*In a few instances, small localities block access to Google crawlers on their websites, preventing full search capabilities.  For more information, contact www.business.gov.