13. The method of claim 11 further comprising determining that the first search query is regional specific query when the first metric value exceeds a LL threshold.
11. A method for determining the intent of query, comprising: receiving at a computer system a first search query; storing in a data storage system log data associated with the first search query; at the computer system, generating metric values associated with the first search query based on the log data and determining that the first search query is one of a regional specific query or a global query based on the metric values, including identifying at least one n-gram within the first search query and generating a first metric value based on the number of times the at least one n-gram occurs with a location term within a geographic region relative to the number of times the at least one n-gram occurs within the geographic region, and generating a second metric based on the number of times a second search query was submitted in tandem with a regional search option relative to the number of times the first search query was submitted without the regional search option, wherein the first search query and the second search query include the same content; and at the computer system, providing search results selected in part based on the metric values, wherein the metric values reflect a likelihood of local intent of the first search query.