Google

Location, location, location. When you’re searching for a hotel for an upcoming trip, finding the right location can make all the difference.

Enter the new Google Hotel Finder, which forgoes static lists of SEO-driven links for interactive maps that let users “draw” their own conclusions.

For example, if you search for a hotel in Las Vegas, the site will return a map, along with one-line hotel listings, each of which includes a photo, the hotel class, user rating, rate per night and a price comparison between that rate and the property’s typical price over the last year.

Click on the map and it’ll bring up a larger map with a geometric shape overlaid on your preferred area. Drag the corners of that shape and you can narrow your search to specific blocks, expand it to a larger area or add other shapes to search other neighborhoods. Scroll over each hotel — represented by a blue dot — and you can see more details, read reviews and add properties to a shortlist for later use.

“Images and graphics make sense because they allow travelers to make easy and quick refinements to their search area,” said Henry Harteveldt, travel industry analyst for Forrester Research. “Traditional online travel agencies have relied far too much on the printed word.”

While Hotel Finder is currently in test mode and limited to U.S. destinations, it will likely shake up the search-engine market. According to Forrester, hotel bookings for leisure and individual business travelers are expected to top $32 billion this year, a major incentive for Google to join the fray.

“Google tests a lot of things so it’s hard to say if [Hotel Finder] will last,” said Barry Schwartz, news editor for SearchEngineLand.com and CEO of web-services firm RustyBrick.com. “But it’s definitely a cool way of searching for hotels.”

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Rob Lovitt is a longtime travel writer who still believes the journey is as important as the destination. Follow him at Twitter.