![]() ![]() There’s obviously no mechanism to independently measure all of the usage, so surveys are conducted along with various other ancillary measures for a sample set of people, and those figures are then projected out across the U.S. It’s not possible to know exactly how much people use print yellow pages. So, did this demonstrate that yellow pages were being used less, and, did the yellow pages indeed become “toast” four years later? What Did This Shift Tell Us About Local Searches? ![]() The drop in these searches appeared significant enough to reflect some major shift in consumer behavior - if those consumers weren’t trying to find a YP site to use, or a YP company from which to obtain a phone book, then they must be getting business info elsewhere. Users searching for “yellow pages” in Google were typically trying to find one of two things - they were either trying to find the Web address of their local yellow pages in order to conduct business searches online, or they were trying to find contact information for their YP company (either to order a phone book or to advertise in the yellow pages). So, when I saw the clearly-declining trend line for YP searches back then, it was concerning to me, and it seemed highly likely that the cause probably was that Google Maps (and other local search engines ) were having an impact on both print and online YP usage. Google Trends also showed expectable seasonal spikes for various industries, and rises and declines in cumulative interest in topics (which is the basis for Google Zeitgeist which is also often cited as a pulse indicator for rises and drops in popularity). The clickthrough rate for “yellow pages” searches was a large enough volume with enough consistency to see a correlation with the graphed line in Google Trends, and with some directory usage indicators. I had worked for some years for Verizon’s online YP site,, overseeing analytics, among other things, and Superpages had occupied the top search result in Google for searches for “Yellow Pages” for quite a number of years. I had some basis for believing the Google Trends numbers back then, and for associating them with overall consumer behavior connected to “Yellow Pages” as well as for a number of other types of searches for businesses. (Not to mention, there is uncertainty about what the actual volume of searches is in the graphs since Google obscures volume amounts, and there can be error in assuming that Google users reflect the same search patterns of users who may search elsewhere, such as in Bing.) There are many reasons why people search for a particular phrase, and many reasons why cumulative searches for the phrase can rise or fall. When I wrote that earlier article, I was aware that connecting a major shift in overall consumer behavior to a graphed trendline of searches in Google was a little loose in terms of causality. About four years later, we can now look back and see whether this turned out to be a valid prediction, and also reflect on what value YP may still have for advertisers. There is sometimes a membership or one-time charge associated with running searches via sponsor links.In 2007, I took some heat for pointing out that Google Trends showed declining searches for “yellow pages” while theorizing that this indicated reducing consumer interest in print and online YP sites. Information is gathered from multiple online records databases, as well as public records databases.Īdditional information, such as associated email address, is provided by people finder websites located by clicking sponsor links within the listings. The information generated from these searches is provided for free. Other services provided on the Dexknows White Pages official website include reverse phone searches, business searches and address searches. Users also download the information and get the available information texted to a mobile phone. By clicking Full Profile, a user gets a map display, and clicking Get Directions provides directions to the searched person’s physical address. This information includes the age range of the person, possible relatives or associated people, and the last-known physical address. To help identify a positive match, additional information is provided within individual listings. Common name searches generate more than one listing in the search results. ![]()
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