YellowPages.com listings have a new place for online display: the immense number of pages contained in Yahoo’s local site.
The partnership poses a tremendous achievement for Yahoo and a significant challenge for Microsoft and Google in the battle for local search supremacy. ClickZ reported on the deal between the two; advertising efforts to promote the arrangement will draw on a budget of “tens of millions” of dollars, the report said.
YellowPages advertising has Yahoo Local and Yahoo’s Yellow Pages as new destinations for the businesses appearing in its web listings. The ads will appear as sponsored listings.
The YellowPages website relaunched in 2005 after undergoing an extensive makeover in appearance and functionality. AT&T and BellSouth operate YellowPages.com as a joint venture.
Local search became a big focus for search engine competitors Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft in 2005. All three online players expended time and money in enhancing their offerings for local users. Google combined its Maps service into its Local service and removed the beta label from Google Local. Microsoft launched Windows Live Local, featuring “bird’s eye” imagery of a dozen US cities.
Whichever site proves the most useful to local searchers stands to gain millions in advertising profits. Online users have increasingly turned to search engines for their information, and local search emerged as a logical extension to the broader search efforts of Google and others.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
