Yahoo Targets Google, Yellow Pages with New Local Search
"Yahoo estimates that 20-25% of all search queries have a local component, either stated explicitly (Home Depot; Washington acupuncturist) or implicitly (flowers, doctors). Yahoo hopes not only to provide relevant results for its current volume of local search queries, but take share away from other providers of local information and content, regardless of whether they're online or not.
'Local content represents a $100 billion offline market,' said Paul Levine, General Manager, Yahoo Local. This includes things like yellow pages, direct mail, local television and radio and so on. Of that, the yellow pages market represents $14 billion in annual revenue, all of which is addressable by search, Levine believes."
You can have a look at the beta here.
The point to learn about for webmasters and designers is, "what is required on the site to take advantage of this new approach?" Since results can be sorted by distance from the search point of interest, items like street address, city, & zip are clearly important to have on your site. The article does not really specify where this information comes from in the search results, and the engine does make use of other references such as restaurant directories. It provides price rankings and hours of operation, which would seem to have to come from such a source.
In any event, this bears watching for any business on the web that has a locational relevance.
'Local content represents a $100 billion offline market,' said Paul Levine, General Manager, Yahoo Local. This includes things like yellow pages, direct mail, local television and radio and so on. Of that, the yellow pages market represents $14 billion in annual revenue, all of which is addressable by search, Levine believes."
You can have a look at the beta here.
The point to learn about for webmasters and designers is, "what is required on the site to take advantage of this new approach?" Since results can be sorted by distance from the search point of interest, items like street address, city, & zip are clearly important to have on your site. The article does not really specify where this information comes from in the search results, and the engine does make use of other references such as restaurant directories. It provides price rankings and hours of operation, which would seem to have to come from such a source.
In any event, this bears watching for any business on the web that has a locational relevance.
posted by RGMyers at 9:40 PM
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