"Still Together" - Search Engines and Internet Yellow Pages

by Paul Jahn - Local MN

This article follows one written almost a year ago on how IYPs (Internet Yellow Pages) and search engines were starting to work with each other to earn trust with local searchers and advertisers. They have always targeted the same market in two distinctly different ways. IYPs have tremendous sales teams that push their products. Search engines let people find them.

It makes sense that they would work together. They each have features that the other does not. IYPs have realized that no matter how good their products are, many people simply only use Google, Yahoo! and other search engines to find local businesses. Search engines realize that IYPs have local business data provided by aggregators. This data helps search engines provide more comprehensive local results. Here are just some ways how they continue to develop and work with each other.

Search Engines

Search for an accountant, pizza restaurant or auto shop in your nearest metropolitan area. In addition to more relevant natural search results, there is a good chance that up to three local listings will appear above the treasured #1 natural position. Part of this is thanks to yellow pages data. They can provide the major search engines information to help accurately show local listings (notice no particular search engine was mentioned?).

In May 2005, Google reached a deal with InfoUSA to use their yellow pages data for their Google Local platform. They currently use some SuperPages.com data for their local listings as well. These partnerships help Google Local populate their listings with relevant businesses, both in quantity and quality. Yahoo! Local has also been using InfoUSA for quite awhile.

They don't stop there. You've probably done a search for something local and found authority IYPs such as SuperPages, Switchboard and others come up toward the top of natural results. I've heard plenty of people and webmasters complain that IYP results rank higher than their own local site they've optimized. In this case, the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" phrase can be a good idea. This was even prevalent a year ago when the first article was written.

IYPs (Internet Yellow Pages)

Since the November 2004 article, IYPs have been very busy... to say the least. Every time you looked, there was a merger, acquisition or a new local feature. A good overview is to show you the Local Search Guide. Click on the Internet Yellow Pages tab and browse the different IYPs to see who now owns who.

Every major IYP integrates some sort of search capability. This gives their big sales forces more leverage to sell products. Even before the November 2004 article was written, RealPages started selling Google Adwords advertising to small and medium sized businesses. More recently, SuperPages joined the game by using Pay-Per-Click advertising campaigns on behalf of their local advertisers.

A couple years ago, no one would have ever thought an IYP sales rep could call you boasting and offering Google and other search engine opportunities, plus pay-per-click and even "pay-per-call" features. Now, it's an essential part to their survival.

SuperPages goes even further by providing business profiles for Google Local. If you do a Google Local search, there's a good chance you'll find business information provided by them. Although Google uses different sources of information depending on the type of business you're seeking, SuperPages currently provides more data from a broader variety of businesses.

IYPs and Search Engines: Still Together in 2006?

You can bet on it. They have both realized the potential as early as 2003, started working together in 2004 and have made huge strides in 2005. Continue to see IYP results in search engines, IYP aggregate data to populate local searches and more IYP mergers and local products. Has a Yellow Pages rep called you yet offering search engine placement? Like it or not, they most likely will.

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