A study into national Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) search activity, found shifts among the top sites in 2007 partly due to new strategic partnerships according to comScore.
The IYP search market leader in the fourth quarter of 2007 was Yellowpages.com Network, which formed multiple partnerships with sites including Areaguides.net and 411.com, enabling them to be the leader in total IYP searches.
YellowPages Logo
(Photo Credit: YellowPages.com)
“In the highly competitive IYP search market, partnerships played a significant role in determining the 2007 landscape,” said Serge Matta, senior vice president of comScore. “Yellowpages Network was one of the key beneficiaries of this strategy, since partnerships helped it secure a leading position in the market.”
Yellowpages.com Network (20.2 percent share) just beat out Superpages.com Network (20.0 percent share) in Q4 2007 to take the top position in the IYP market. Superpages new partnerships helped to increase its search activity, with the new Local.com partnership and the Infospace FindIt/Switchboard purchase adding to its gains.
Superpages ended its affiliation with both 411.com and MSN Yellowpages, offsetting the positive impact of the new partnerships. Superpages saw an increased number of total searches in 2007, it did not grow as fast as the market, and as a result its share fell slightly.
Yellow Book Network more than doubled it share from 4 percent to nearly 9 percent, benefiting in part from its new relationship with Addresses.com. Microsoft Sites experienced an increase in IYP searches after it began redirecting searches to Microsoft Maps beginning in December. Microsoft Sites increased its search share from 3.8 percent in Q4 2006 to 4.8 percent in Q4 2007.
R.H. Donnelley, a regional local search provider among the top 8 U.S. IYP sites had a relatively modest national IYP search market share of 3.3 percent. Within their 14-state region, they actually led the market in Q4 2007 with a 22 percent market share.
Yellow Book Network and R.H. Donnelley saw traffic more than double, due to a combination of new relationships and organic visitor growth. R.H. Donnelley’s growth can be largely attributed to its purchase of Business.com.
