Comments on: You Know You Are a Yellow Pages Site If..

By: Mihmorandum | The Value of the Yellow Pages for Small Businesses Today | General Marketing

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:03:06 +0000

[...] Sullivan of LocalBizBits recently authored a post asking about what defines an Internet Yellow Pages website. For those too lazy to click the link I will repeat my comment here, which is that the [...]

By: Larry Sullivan

Larry Sullivan — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 03:25:25 +0000

Great conversation!

Yes Ahmed you will be the first one I ask next time!

For the consumer/searcher out there I do not think they wlll care what site they use, as long as they get the info. I like Ben’s comment on the other content provided (or not) on the sites.

I also like David’s comment on the relevancy of the distinction.

By: Ash Nallawalla

Ash Nallawalla — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:45:25 +0000

It would be too generous to say that most IYPs are “into SEO”. Most are not and I know that such sites cannot be optimised quickly for the same reasons that large corporate sites can’t (silos, bureaucracy, cost, interdependencies etc).

I suggest loading Firefox with Searchstatus and highlight no-follows. That’s a quick way to tell which sites have *begun* SEO. From Ahmed’s list:

Many have implemented PR sculpting (or basic no-follows).

Many have individual profile pages

Some pay attention to title/H1/metas

Some let you (er, spiders) browse by headings

Some pay attention to file/path names

Some have gone overboard with RoS backlinks

By: Andrew Shotland

Andrew Shotland — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:43:01 +0000

I stand by my original statement – you know one when you see one

By: AhmedF

AhmedF — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:18:18 +0000

I am pretty sure they are all into SEO.

SERP keywords generating traffic (according to Compete):
Yellowpages.com – 39k keywords
Superpages.com – 30k keywords
Yelp – 31k
Citysearch – 57k keywords
Yellowbot – 6k keywords

# of Pages in Google:
Yellowpages.com – 600k
Superpages.com – 21 million
Citysearch.com – 22 million
Yelp – 5 million
Yellowbot – 9 million

I am also pretty sure pretty much everybody now provides user reviews.

Should have asked me Larry

“Traditionally – YP sites are just an extension of an existing yellow pages book. But nowadays – its all really the same”

By: Ben Saren

Ben Saren — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:49:30 +0000

Larry, this is a great post. In my opinion there’s a big difference in the way an IYP and a City Guide (like CitySquares) generate and retain traffic. I think that an IYP isn’t poised to capture traffic through SEO, instead they intend to build much more of a destination site, which is lovely, but hard to do unless you have a really powerful brand, which some might argue they do. Also, an IYP isn’t providing other kinds of content like news, events etc., city guides tend to do that, like CitySquares. What do you think?

By: AhmedF

AhmedF — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:35:52 +0000

One day I will be able to read a story about local search without having to read a plug about Brownbook in the comments …

The Yellow Pages is pretty much generic *only* in the US. Canada, UK, NZ, etc etc – it is a TMed term. So not sure about ‘in most parts of the world.’

Just to note Larry – that post of mine was never explicit about YPs, IYPs, etc etc. I just pulled up every site that had anything to do with local search and then listed the sites with a minimum of 0.1% US reach.