Ready to Search Near?

Our development continues on an innovative approach to local search nav and results rendering. We'll release a rev1 site in the first quarter of 2007...to address the increasing fragementation and intermediation making search results, especially local results that still confuse literal location data with merchant service areas, less relevent than ever in many search scenarios.

Adding to the challenges, data inconsistencies are on the rise as indiv sites gather and protect their base data sets...under the presumption that better base data (ie. better content) will make them standout. Doubtful, as not even the mediocre/poor results provieded to the many searchers of unmatched-scale Ggl still have a relatively high percentage of users spreading "best results" sentiment.

Hmm...seen Clusty, lately?

"Profile" Pages Abound!

Profile pages abound, as does the clutter and confusion. Local merchants are being inundated with all sorts of microsites, profile pages, detailed pages, listings, enhanced listings, featured listings, sponsor listings, etc, etc....and worse yet, each of these listing types has multiple affiliated brands, many requiring a Go/No Go decision by the merchant. The fear is the average merchant who recognizes the need to promote their business online just simply does not have that many "Yeses" in them and we risk frustrating and alienating those merchants who will "wait for it all to be sorted out or simplified". Cornerstone bundles many brands and listing types into its "meta-local" value paks and has seen good receptivity from local merchants who are busy running their businesses. We've found that whereas the lead brands certainly matter...Yahoo and Google...in many cases the gravy (and peace of mind) to the local merchant is the inclusion in organic and base inclusion across many brands.

Yahoo! Yellow Pages Success
Info snippet from the street: just heard from a real estate-related merchant that Yahoo Yellow Pages continues to deliver results, even when other online tactics are very much underperforming. Their offline tactics are lagging far behind expectations. I certainly can't draw too many conclusions from this anecdotal evidence...but can say in this merchant's mind, Yahoo is a brand that continues to deliver results in a very difficult real estate-related market. We've heard a number of other good customer takes on Y! Yellow Pages, too.