Forum Moderators: anallawalla & bakedjake
Tax accountant, graduate degree, spends 10-14 hours per day on the Internet doing various work. Knows advanced Google boolean commands.
She still goes to the offline yellow pages book first to find what she needs locally.
Do you still use the yellow pages? Why?
There will be other factors but when a house phone is no longer a handset or something separate that you hold (when at home) - but is directly integrated into monitors (perhaps with a wireless headset) - that will be the stage where the yellowpages will be in their death spiral.
I think the end is drawing near, nearer than the yellowpages companies would like to acknowledge.
internet useless for searches of local goods and services
Are you using a global search engine with a local qualifier? I.E. are you going to google.com, and then typing in "<cityname> <service>"?
It seems to me that many people don't know local search functions even exist.
I truly believe that we are talking about a *Generational and Behavioral Conditioning* issue here.
One of my daughters first gifts was a play laptop. I got sick of her grabbing at my screen, which she loved to do. She will never know what the yellow pages are.
My little brother hasn't used the yellow pages in the past 5 years. Me neither.
My mom, my dad, sure. They have been doing it for over 50 years and just because this new medium has begun to mature over the past few years (from a local standpoint), when that need arised, that synapse fires in the brain, and those decades of behavioral conditioning kick in and they grab for the big book.
It is hard to recondition behavior so quickly. But for some generations reconditioning is easily, and in the newest generations the new learned behavior is the Internet.
*Generational and Behavioral Conditioning*
Totally agree, in the case of people who don't live on the Internet.
But, more and more I'm finding that there are a class of people who basically live on the Internet as we do (ok, maybe not as much ;-)) but still find the yellow pages faster.
I'm curious as to why they do that. They go to Google for everything else.
Do they not know that Google has information on local businesses?
FWIW - My mom didn't know there was anything like local search out there. She didn't put it together that searches work for local terms, let alone that the engines were devoting specific resources to this. And my mom's a smart woman.
Gigantic untapped market, methinks.
[Sorry about the specifics on the search, but it doesn't get you anything in Local anyway]
once again resorted to the Yellow Pages because it was so much faster
Yep, much easier, much faster.
The Yellow Pages I pick up is already much smarter out of the box, relevant to my city and state.
The IYP I occasionally use asks you to type in a category keyword. If you don't know the valid one you're off drilling down the directory structure -- and we all know that these are not always organized along the way we think. And even if I do enter a valid category name it still insists on bringing me to a page that lists additional category links instead of the category I asked for.
I then have to click through pages and pages of advertisers (seven for one basic search) before I get to the real listings. (And one major IYP does not even label these as advertisments.)
If I then only want to see the listings in my city -- which is what I assumed I asked for in the first place -- I have to click "Show in my city only."
And the biggest Duh! of all - I have to click an extra time to see the phone number.
Did somebody lose sight of something here?
My mom didn't know there was anything like local search out there. She didn't put it together that searches work for local terms, let alone that the engines were devoting specific resources to this. And my mom's a smart woman.
Google's Local Search goes beta in late *March 2004*. And it is still in Beta.
Yahoo Local Search goes beta in *August 2004*. And out of Beta in October 2004.
The >>devoting specific resources<< part of it is very very new.
And previously, I think that many people, even the savvy users felt that the Internet served to break down local confines and open up the user to the *world wide* web. Its ironic, because as the Internet matures, we are realizing that it is hard to break local consumption patterns. And instead of working against these patterns, the Internet can augment them.
I think that savvy users, like your mom, are *now* finally understanding that their search for information, resources, businesses, et al. can be confined in a manner that coincides with consumption needs and habits.
When I first started doing SEO in 1998 I spent nearly a year trying to optimize my web design site for a national audience. Hello? Why? Because the Internet afforded me that luxury and I *thought* I should take advantage of it. When I figured out that the overwhelming majority of my business was local, reality set in, and I placed geo-qualifiers on my optimization efforts and have been enjoying success ever since.
The user went through a similar learning curve. They didnt understand the need of geo qualifiers in their search. This too has changed, albeit slowly. And now search segmentation like local, shopping, and vertical search will better direct their otherwise implicit intent.
We are still learning the utility of the Internet from a webmaster and web user standpoint and local is an excellent example of our collective learning curve.
A search on G simply doesn't return those results as fast as flipping to "Farriers" in the YPs. Same thing with feed supplies, tractor parts, equine supplies, fencing supplies, etc.
Is the issue with local search simply a relevancy one? Does the yellow pages really contain more up to date and relevant information than online search engines?
Is it simply a behavioral one? Are we so trained that we cannot fathom using anything else to find local businesses other than the yellow pages?
Is it simply a capacity one? stefan can't find Owen Sound.
Is it simply an efficiency one? Can our friend digitalghost really find all of the farriers in his area faster by looking at a sheet of paper rather than putting a query in his favorite engine?
We know that this information is easier to categorize, find, and search for in electronic format.
What has to change to get local search to reach the tipping point?
If you don't use local search now, what do you need to see changed before you will?
How do you want to see the information presented?
As a searcher, what extra information do you want? tedster wants his pizza coupons.
As a webmaster, when will there be enough incentive for you to update your (clients) information in the local databases?
I have some of the most early adopters in Internet technology in this thread saying they're not using it. That tells me it's not yet in a usuable format.
[edited by: bakedjake at 5:22 pm (utc) on Dec. 29, 2004]
I'm 58, if the generational comment is refering to age.
I think having really spent time learning how search can be made to work better is a factor.
People who put in a one word or two word search term may be a lot less likely to easily find what they want.
Yeah, search can still be frustrating at times, but ..... I don't even know where the Yellow Pages are around here.
One other point - it's odd to me that a paid advertisement in the Yellow Pages doesn't seem to carry nearly the same stigma as a paid ad on a Web site. People talk about having to wade through the ads online to find what they're looking for - I like the ads in the Yellow Pages - they ARE what I'm looking for. When i used to use the Yellow Pages for local search, I would almost always choose a merchant with a big ad (paid) - partly because it jumped out, and partly because a big paid ad implied stability, success, and the desire to win my business on the part of the vendor.
I wonder if its irrelevant ads that leads to this stigma online - for example, if I'm searching for City Auto Glass Repair, I don't want to see a big, prominent national ad for Pep Boys (auto parts), even though its sort of related.
Google/Yahoo Local doesn't have popups or moving banners. Why don't you use them?
But the pages they point to are full of this junk.
Another reason: many local businesses don't have websites, so the yellow pages are the most complete resource. Plus, you've learned over time how to infer something about the business from the type of ad. With websites, you sometimes know more about what type of designer they hired than who's actually doing the work.
The yellow pages are quick and easy. Starting a computer, sorting through junk SEO links....
I need to see relevant results. I don't want to see directory results. I don't want to have to type an entire sentence into the query box in order to get marginal results.
>>I wonder if its irrelevant ads that leads to this stigma online
Not for me. I think the irrelevant ads reflect poorly on the search engine and the advertiser. "Farriers for Sale" from Ebay looks ridiculous.
If I'm looking for something locally, chances are it is a very specific thing I'm looking for. I don't need or want a search engine's "best guess" at what I'm looking for, I want results. I don't use a search engine because I want to search for things, I use a search engine because I want to find things.
Local results, and lately, all results presented by the search engines seem to say, "here's some stuff we found that may be of interest, search among these results and maybe you'll find what you need".
Just doesn't work for me.
One doesn't go to the library looking for hardware stores. Why are people going to generalized full-text search engines to look for local businesses? Because they don't know where else to look.
I'm also starting to get the impression that most people simply don't know what the phrase "local search" means. That tab on Yahoo that says "Local" doesn't mean anything to anyone. That's a bit offtopic for this thread - probably another good thread starter.
You search for plumber and the serps show the title as
Plumber in "name of hotel"
Plumber in "name of town"
splashed all over the hotel page is plumber for the same town with h1 h2 tags
I have had a local search directory for 5 years and its only in the last 12 - 18 months that all this garbage has appeared in the serps when the large search engines decided to go local on a large scale
Its one thing us power searchers knowing where to look and what to type in the search box but Mr and Mrs average internet user are not as advanced so they will always use the yellow pages book because they find the info they looked for straight way
Because people aren't making local directories or search engines for small towns and the directories for large towns tend to offer up a very narrow slice of the overall pie.
Then there's the meaning of "local". What's local for tractor parts might not be local for pizza.
Additionally, with the Yellow Pages, I know that when I dial the number, I'm going to speak with someone at an auto parts store, or a guy that can sell me a pizza, or a guy that can shoe my horses. Clicking a link is a crap shoot. I may get a guy that knows a guy that can shoe my horses, or I may get a guy that wants to talk about the history of shoeing horses, then again, I may get the International Horse Shoe Association.
It all comes down to Don't Make Me Think. The Yellow Pages have proven to be useful. Search, local or worldwide, is often an exercise in frustration.
It is far friendlier for competing terminologies-- there's an A-Z index and plenty of "For X see Y" entries; I looked under "Airports," "Limousines and Shuttles," and "Taxi Services" and not only failed to locate a section for "Airport Shuttles," but none of those three categories included a number for the most popular shuttle service in the area. Moreover, I had to browse through a lengthy list of ads-- not in alphabetical order either-- even to get to the first page of listings. As it happens, this popular airport shuttle service serves the entire metro region but is based in a town outside whatever Yahoo's default radius is for my zip code.
That speaks to another limitation-- local conceptions or perceptions of geography are not easily reduced to database algorithms. Since we live an area that borders a state line (Chevy Chase, MD and Washington, DC), we have frequent problems with delivery and locator services because the closest physical location may be across the border in a whole different set of zip codes. We can't order Pizza Hut online, for instance, because it forces us to order from the Bethesda MD location even though the nearest DC location is only 5 blocks away. That sort of problem is reversed by other services upcounty, when the "nearest" location may well be in Virginia-- except for the need to drive a very roundabout route to get to a bridge over the Potomac. Yahoo at least seems to have overcome this limitation (they use the distance computed by their driving distance service).
And that is smack in the middle of a major metropolitan area in the US. So-called "local" services are going to be much spottier in outer suburbs, exurbs, small towns, and rural areas.
People talk about having to wade through the ads online to find what they're looking for - I like the ads in the Yellow Pages - they ARE what I'm looking for.
In the book format it does work very well. Ads are interspersed with listings, I can scan either as I choose. In the example I gave somewhere above, the IYP of my phone provider forced me to wade through seven pages of ads. No way will I do this.
As for some of the very thought provoking questions Jake has raised, I guess I find it much easier and faster to scan a printed page than to read a web page.
Now I'm almost positive we'll hear more from Tedster :)
As for organization, what can be simpler and more consistent than categories listed alphabetically? I don't have to suss out how the provider wants me to use the service; I already know how.
I never thought about this behavior before, but it's definitely what I do. As the owner of a local bricks & mortar, I'm well versed in Local Search, but I don't use it except to spy on the competition. Hmmm.
Yes, because I know that YP info will be a maximum of 364 days old, whereas stuff on the net is often years out of date.
How many times have you searched for something in a locale you're familiar with an seen numerous things that you KNOW are out-dated. Businesses that are long-gone...buildings that burned to the ground...etc.
I often check a certain nation-wide local search site and find some of their listing in my area out of date, and I know some of the people that write for that site. Two of them even live in this building. Keeping local info up to date is a lot of work.
The first round of local search on the net in many cases amounted to some guy throwing-up a simple list of things: pizza joints, barbershops, etc. then making no changes to it for years. Why were no changes made? Because there was no financial gain to be made from it. Those lists were only there to funnel SE traffic to other parts of the site like hotel aff booking pages etc.
People are still leary about the accuracy of local search, and it's because WE made them that way. Now it's going to be twice as hard to win them back.
Online version (.ca) is not much better, but it is still easier to use.
.ca local search is still not polished enough. Very buggy.
Now I am always frustrated: I have to check multiple books, or spend 20 minutes on a SE trying to find what I need.
I can see 99% of the web pages in the index are poorly built, so there is hope, but it will be a while.
