Local Match & Yellow Pages

What's it all about?

[RossWal]

I've had several conversations with Yahoo and Overture in an attempt to understand local match, including its relationship, if any, with Y Yellow Pages and YP sponsored listings.

Y said to call O about YP sponsored listings.

First call to O, they said yup we handle YP sponsored listings now, it's part of Local Match.

Next call to O said, Nope we have nothing to do with YYP.

Next call to O to explore Local Match said they use the dial-up number from the searchers ISP, and pass that to the GPS system to get a geographic fix for targeting ads. No, I'm not making this up.

To avoid specifics, lets say you were in the Big Apple and had a toothache. So you go to Y! to find someone to fix it. In the normal Y! serps you would find some yellow page listings at the top. But not from the Y! YP sponsored listings.

Are Y! Yellow Pages and Y! Local Match going to be side-by- side products competing with one another?

Any clues? THanks for any comments.

[2_much]

That's a great point you're bringing up. When I was doing research about yellow pages and local search, it all seems very ambiguous and it's difficult to determine what to submit where.

It seems to me that Local Match uses results from yellow pages? I'm not sure though. This is an area that would be worth investigating as it would open up a lot of smaller businesses.

[OvertureRep]

RossWal -

So sorry about the confusion. Hopefully this helps explain how the products are related:

Yahoo! Yellow Pages consists of a comprehensive database of listings licensed from InfoUSA plus a section of paid listings in the Sponsored Businesses section. The Sponsored Businesses section consists of paid listings from our reseller partners, self-service, and Overture. The Overture products are geographically targeted Local Match and Precision Match listings.

Yahoo! Local also includes a comprehensive database of listings licensed from InfoUSA, several other data sources, and web content. Yahoo! Local also has a sponsored business section which solely consists of geographically targeted Overture Local Match and Precision Match listings.

Overture Local Match is a product for advertisers that have a physical storefront or service a specific geographic region. Advertisers provide a description and details about their business and do not need a website to participate. The advertiser chooses the relevant keywords and defines the geographic region to target their listing.

Here are a couple of links you can go to for more info:

Yahoo! Local: [help.yahoo.com...]
Overture Local Match: [content.overture.com...]

OvertureRep

[Brett_Tabke]

Thanks for the clarifications and welcome to the forums OR.

[kapow]

As far as I can tell (please correct me if I got it wrong) 'Local' only applies within USA.

[Chris_D]

Yahoo! Local Search is also here in Australia - launched last month. Yahoo Australia are doing a good job of marketing it too!

See [au.local.yahoo.com...]

[Teknorat]

Yes but it's an awful product at the moment.

[RossWal]

Thanks for the info OR! A couple more questions if I may. I really need to use a specific to get the point across, hopefully the mods will be OK with it.

1) When I search Yahoo for snipped I get a Yellow Page like list of half a dozen snipped at the top. When I search Y Yellow Pages for the same, I get a list of sponsored businesses, none of which seem to be in the list from my first search. So I'm confused as to whether there is cross over between the two searches or whether Sponsored Businesses is a competing product with PPC Local Match listings.

2) The link you gave for Yahoo Local indicates it's still in beta. Must I go to local.yahoo.com for local search or is incorporated in the main site now?

3) I have noticed links to brick & mortar websites in the Y! Yellow Pages. These are not Sponsored businesses, just plain old businesses mixed in with the rest. What determines whether a "Web Site" link is displayed?

If you could clear this up, I'm sure many of us would be both grateful and better informed of your product line.

Thanks!

[edited by: DaveAtIFG at 4:16 pm (utc) on Sep. 2, 2004]

[Yahoo_Mike]

RossWal, just chiming in with some thoughts on your 3 questions:

1) We currently incorporate up to 3 listings from Yahoo Yellow Pages for relevant queries that include a location. The listings are pulled from YP's licensed database of local businesses and does not include listings from the Sponsored Businesses program. Relevant Overture results are also displayed on the search results page beneath the YP results. Therefore, the YP Sponsored Businesses are not competing with Overture listings on the SRP.

2) The Local product is still in beta and not yet part of the general web search.

3) The web site links in the All Business section of the Yellow Pages come from various sources and are not part of a paid program. They are added as a convenience to our users.

Hope this helps.

[Chicago]

i luv it.

and we are the professionals.

notwithstanding consumer adoption, imagine the confusion amongst the small business owners ~ the core beneficiaries of these advertising services.

even amongst the clarification, y forgot to mention another local service- smartview.

one need not wonder why this marketplace is fragmented.

[ortelius]

Well said, Chicago. What a fragmented, confusing array of products. It is no wonder that small businesses are ignoring these products in droves (and they are). FYI -- I think Yahoo's reliance on InfoUSA, which a basically a list broker, is misplaced. Recently, when I wanted to purchase a Yahoo YP ad for my own business, I was unable to get past the starting gate with Yahoo because I did not have a business listing. The reason I did not have a business listing was because my phone number for my business was a second line in my building, not the primarly line. Therefore, it did not show up as a valid business, with its own name, in the phone company records. Info USA gets much of its "info" from phone company records (you know how up to date they are!). Anyhow, for about 9 months I repeatedly followed the directions in trying to get my listing into the InfoUSA database -- no luck, it was a black hole. BTW -- I believe, though not 100% sure, that Google also relies heavily on InfoUSA in its local offerings. Does anyone have more info on that company?

[Shredhead]

Google does not have an IYP, but rather relies on it's local beta to provide results it deems locally relavant... most so far seem to be coming in from other IYP's like Superpages, Switchboard and Citysearch. By the way-it's this trend which further enhances the value of IYP inclusion. To answer your question-I don't believe INFO USA has anything to do with Google search, local or otherwise.

I agree with you re. Yahoo's IYP, it's continued use of INFO USA, the roadblocks for new listings as well as numerous other strange policies, however they are #1 in IYP (unique visitors) so it's worth the headache. Also, local businesses are not really avoiding IYP in "droves". IYP is growing at a nice steady pace, and is projected to continue to do so.

It's my belief that Y has let this once decent product fade away as they concentrate all the other things on their plate...too bad.