08 August 2007
The difference between Yellow Pages and search engines
A fascinating article by Kevin Ryan of the ClickZ Network published on SearchEngineWatch this morning. He argues that the web (and thus search engines) are dominant in researching a purchase but when the user has made the decision to buy, his next port of call is the Yellow Pages in order to find a store to complete the purchase. The added irony is that the Yellow Pages site probably receives 50-90% of its traffic from the search engine itself, its biggest "competitor"
Where it gets really interesting though is when you consider how differently the two information sources expect the user to behave. The search engine is inherently flexible, the user can tailor his request and the search engine keeps 'trying' to give him what he wants. Whereas the Yellow Pages operates by a strict taxonomy which requires a distinct degree of understanding in order for it to yield up the desired results.
So why not twin user-generated content with an old-fashioned listings structure? YellowBot.com does just that as it offers users the ability to 'tag' items to create 'tag clouds' of relevant classifications. This is just the latest manifestation of the importance of the social networking sites and the effect that this phenomenon is having on all of our businesses, particularly when it comes to the "long tail".
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