New Delhi, Dec 5 (IANS): Google has revealed that Search results that show local places and businesses now drive more than 4 billion connections between customers and businesses every month.

According to the company, this includes more than 2 billion monthly website clicks and other connections, such as phone calls, directions, food ordering and reservations.

Not only Google Search, its Maps feature has also helping people navigate, explore and get things done every single day.

"Over the past 15 years, we've provided maps in more than 220 countries and territories and now surface helpful information for more than 200 million places," informed Elizabeth Reid, Vice President of Engineering, Google Maps.

"These efforts bring helpful local information to your fingertips in Google Maps and produce better Google Search results, helping you connect with nearby places and businesses," she said in a blog post on Friday.

Google shared some interesting data amid the ongoing pandemic.

"Since the start of COVID-19, businesses made nearly 700 million edits to their Business Profiles, about double the number of changes made during the same time last year".

Each month, Google connects people with more than 120 million businesses that don't have websites, "helping small business owners who aren't online attract more customers".

Building data partnerships with authoritative sources worldwide has been a helpful exercise for Google.

"Thanks to partnerships covering more than 10,000 local governments, municipal agencies and organsations around the world, we're able to reflect the latest information in Search and Maps results and help local authorities reach even more people in their communities with important updates," Reid elaborated.

Google's conversational technology called Duplex is helping the company scale its ability to confirm updated information for places.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Google has put Duplex to work making calls to businesses in eight countries to confirm things like opening hours or whether they offer takeout and delivery.

"This has helped us make millions of updates to business information that have been seen more than 20 billion times in Maps and Search," Reid said.