Edwin - 8:43 pm on Apr 8, 2012 (gmt 0)

How do you see the value of traffic hitting a local directory from descriptive information/transaction searches (e.g. "bed and breakfast in placename", "placename mobile beauty salon") vs business-specific searches (e.g. "Example Name Bar", "ACME Solicitors placename")?

My instinct is that the purely generic searches would be significantly more valuable to an advertiser, because they represent a visitor who's on the lookout for an "answer" to what they're looking for, but who's not yet made up their mind.

The business-specific searches on the other hand are in a sense "borrowing the click" from the business in question, a business that by definition the searcher's already heard of.

What do you think? Is there any data (anecdotal or otherwise) to support one view or another?