I was in San Francisco over the weekend and needed to get to the Giants game from Golden Gate Park. I tried entering “Pac Bell Park” into the GPS. No go. “SBC Park”. Nope. I ended up looking at my trusty Avis map, finding the intersection and entering that in the GPS.

The situation on local search is much the same. Depending on which search engine or yellow pages product use, you may or may not find the place. If you’re looking for the airport in Burbank, you may have to search for “Burbank Airport” or “Bob Hope Airport”.

Try searching Yahoo! Finance for FWHT, and you’ll get a half-dead page for a company that is now MIVA. Search for AOL, and you’ll get an error page.

User are often looking for data using old names. Search tools should let them, by either re-directing to the new name or telling them that the name has changed.