Several years ago Yahoo used to have two local sites (in addition to maps): yellowpages.yahoo.com and Yahoo Local. I don’t know when yellowpages.yahoo.com started redirecting to Yahoo Local; it must be at least a couple of years though.
Interestingly the new Yahoo Local has no business search or reviews; it’s a feed featuring several content categories: news, events, deals:
If you enter a local query in the search box above you go to a general SERP that features local content. But it’s not part of the Local experience. As an aside there’s now a good deal of interesting functionality within Yahoo SERPs.
There’s no longer a Yahoo Yellow Pages and when the new Yahoo Local takes over there will seemingly be no local directory of any kind. Local business lookups and category search will reside entirely within Yahoo Search. The new Yahoo Local is purely a “discovery” site it appears.
All the reviews content that Yahoo Local has will seemingly continue to live in Yahoo SERPs but I assume there will be no solicitation mechanism for any new reviews. That strikes me as strange.
What do you think of the new Yahoo Local and the apparent absence of a local directory at Yahoo?
December 10th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by KennstDuEinen, uj. uj said: RT @KennstDuEinen: Irgendwann ist Schluss: "The End of Local Directories at Yahoo?" http://bit.ly/hA4fZU [...]
December 10th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
The end of directories makes sense because local business search seems to be reaching an inflection point where it’s easier for the consumer to search for exactly what they want, i.e. a plumber in Pacific Heights, than to peruse a directory of San Francisco to find one. Also, the best directories, and I include Yelp, have the reviews that Yahoo couldn’t expand at this stage. My question is when will other directories follow suit with the community engagement approach (offering local news, things to do and deals to the neighborhood) Yahoo is developing?
December 10th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Browse-able old-style directories may fade but “discovery” (e.g., Marissa Mayer’s contextual discovery as an alternative to search) is rising. So you’ve got precise search on the one hand and recommendations or discovery on the other as two opposites.
December 10th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Y! Local Mobile is still business directory search.
http://m.local.yahoo.com/
… To your comment of being more search like, does that then come under the purvue of Microsoft / Bing and their search agreement to provide underlying data/services?
December 10th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Yes, but there’s a comparable site for the new Yahoo Local in mobile that carries the “beta” label. That would presumably simillary replace the mobile site you identify above.
December 10th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
Ah, sorry, I see what you are saying … I would be sorry to see the directories format go away – I like discovery via ‘browsing’ a structured presentation.