Local Search is Booming (Thanks to Recommendations?)

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:04:00 GMT

There has been a surge of annual growth for local search, according to a study conducted by comScore released today by the Yellow Pages Association.

Local search grew 58 percent in 2008, reaching an annual total of 15.7 billion searches, the study shows. By comparison, overall U.S. Web core searches grew at a much smaller rate of 21 percent year-over-year, nearing 137 billion searches by the end of 2008. Local searches stand at 12 percent of core searches on the top 5 portals. Local is clearly becoming a focus of marketers looking to leverage every promotional opportunity available.

Some interesting statistics from the study reinforce this:

75 percent of the top 100 keywords searched on Internet Yellow Pages sites were non-branded, indicating that a majority of consumers have not decided on a specific company or product brand when they begin their search.

Nearly half (45 percent) of Internet Yellow Pages and local online directory searchers made an online purchase in the fourth quarter of 2008.

But what exactly precipitates these local searches?

A recent survey conducted by Buzfactor might provide some answers. The survey found that a recommendation has 15 times more influence on where a person shops and dines than advertising. Buzfactor also found that customers recommend their favorite local businesses as many as 27 times per year and, with recommendations likely being acted upon 71.2% of the time, each customer evangelist a business has potentially generates 19 new customers for the business. Most important, according to Buzfactor, is the edge that local businesses have over national chains. The survey showed that 86% of consumers said the businesses they most often recommend are local.

Internet Yellow Pages Data

Administrator — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Last week Website Magazine posted that YellowPages.com would be replacing SuperPages as Microsoft's source of local information and sponsored listings. On the heels of that development comes a Comscore study into national Internet Yellow Pages search activity.

The study revealed shifts among the top sites in 2007 -- due in part to new strategic partnerships. While the information presented by Comscore does not take into consideration activity on the main search engines (which is where a bulk of the local query volume comes from) it does provide us insights into the relative success of these networks when analyzed by themselves.

From the release: Yellowpages.com Network (20.2 percent share) edged out Superpages.com Network (20.0 percent share) in Q4 2007 to lead the IYP search market. Like Yellowpages, Superpages’ new partnerships provided a boost to its search activity, with the new Local.com relationship and the Infospace FindIt/Switchboard.com acquisition contributing to its gains. However, Superpages discontinued its affiliation with both 411.com and MSN Yellowpages, offsetting the positive impact of the new relationships. Although 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.

'Net Features : IYP

Local Search is Booming (Thanks to Recommendations?)

Internet Yellow Pages Data