Search is at the heart of everything we do here at Google. That's why I'm excited to announce a new innovation in search available today in Google Earth. Users can now search through all of the world's Keyhole Markup Language (KML) files, making the millions of Google Earth layers on the Web instantly accessible for geobrowsing and exploration. Last month, we encouraged you, our Maps API users, to create KML site maps for your mashups. Today's launch is the next step towards making those sitemaps - and all of the world's geographic information - discoverable by users worldwide.
To try it out, just start up Google Earth, zoom to a location of interest, and type in a search query. For example, go to New Zealand, and search for "Lord of the Rings." You'll see the KML results below the local results in the search panel on the left hand side:
Click on one of the KML results and the pop-up bubble will come up in the 3D view and you can read more about the KML file:
If it seems interesting, then you can click on the link and layer the KML file over your Google Earth imagery:
This will initially be available only in Google Earth, but soon the ability to search and view KML files will be live in Google Maps. Stay tuned...
