How Do the Yellow Pages Still Make Money?(thumbtack.com)
thumbtack.com
How Do the Yellow Pages Still Make Money?
https://www.thumbtack.com/blog/how-do-the-yellow-pages-still-make-money/
54 comments
To give a simple example:
"nearest gas station" - Google gives 3 in the next town over, but skips the tribally owned one (which is $.05 cheaper) that you pass on the way to the ones listed.
Siri gives one station 10 miles away that you pass 4 stations to get to.
"nearest grocery store" - Google gets this one correct listing the two on the reservation and the closest one in the next town.
Siri skips both on the reservation and directs you to the one in the next town. You need to drive by one of the two on the reservation to get to it.
Phone book yellow pages has all of them listed.
This is the easy stuff. Asking about oil changes and tires is pretty bad.
// Siri and Weather.app on iOS is actually incapable of finding the town by zip code or name and give results "Not Found" or more bizarrely a town in New York state even though it correctly interpreted North Dakota. It also gives Fargo listings for Jamestown. Google keeps giving the college location I work at as in a town 40 miles from here.
"nearest gas station" - Google gives 3 in the next town over, but skips the tribally owned one (which is $.05 cheaper) that you pass on the way to the ones listed.
Siri gives one station 10 miles away that you pass 4 stations to get to.
"nearest grocery store" - Google gets this one correct listing the two on the reservation and the closest one in the next town.
Siri skips both on the reservation and directs you to the one in the next town. You need to drive by one of the two on the reservation to get to it.
Phone book yellow pages has all of them listed.
This is the easy stuff. Asking about oil changes and tires is pretty bad.
// Siri and Weather.app on iOS is actually incapable of finding the town by zip code or name and give results "Not Found" or more bizarrely a town in New York state even though it correctly interpreted North Dakota. It also gives Fargo listings for Jamestown. Google keeps giving the college location I work at as in a town 40 miles from here.
I have one more to add. I had to drive from New Rockford ND to 4 Bears Casino in New Town ND on Friday. I know how to get to New Town[1], but have never gone to the casino[2]. I search Siri for "4 Bears Casino New Town North Dakota" and get nothing. I then type its address (which I am confirming as I post) "202 Frontage Rd, New Town, ND 58763" into Maps.app. It then shows a place in Connecticut (different state and different zip code).
1) do not go through Minot no matter what the GPS says
2) a lot of meetings are held at various tribal casinos since they all have a lot of conference rooms and are convenient to the hotel that is almost always built next to the casino.
1) do not go through Minot no matter what the GPS says
2) a lot of meetings are held at various tribal casinos since they all have a lot of conference rooms and are convenient to the hotel that is almost always built next to the casino.
Google also does a horrible job in urban areas, giving businesses a dozen miles away (~ 1 hour travel time) over businesses within a five minute walk.
Some of that is Google's fault but I place most of the blame on the businesses themselves.
I'd understand it if most of the local businesses that forgo an online presence were all 1-4 person, family operations where they're all too old to have a "Google it first" mindset. However the majority of businesses that refuse to register themselves with Google have no excuse. I can search for the closest laundromat, tire shop, florist, etc directly by name and address and the only results will be those sites that scrape the secretary of state's corporate filings.
Google has made the process of creating an online presence the simplest, most painless process imaginable. Google's My Business service gets you on Maps with all the important info (location, hours, services, etc) for free, yet so few businesses take the importance of being a top, location based result. If a business doesn't come up in my location based search it's as good as if it never existed.
I'd understand it if most of the local businesses that forgo an online presence were all 1-4 person, family operations where they're all too old to have a "Google it first" mindset. However the majority of businesses that refuse to register themselves with Google have no excuse. I can search for the closest laundromat, tire shop, florist, etc directly by name and address and the only results will be those sites that scrape the secretary of state's corporate filings.
Google has made the process of creating an online presence the simplest, most painless process imaginable. Google's My Business service gets you on Maps with all the important info (location, hours, services, etc) for free, yet so few businesses take the importance of being a top, location based result. If a business doesn't come up in my location based search it's as good as if it never existed.
Why is this the business's responsibility? Like, I understand why they might want to do this, because it will increase traffic, but we're talking about its usefulness as a service to potential customers. If I started a service like this and the data sucked, wouldn't that be my fault even if I had an easy registration process for businesses?
Didn't google use street view data to register allot of businesses?
On the anecdotal evidence side there are 3 laundromats within about 2 min walk from my house, 2 are on a high street and can be found in Google, one is a part of a chain but the other is owned by a Persian guy who's way into his 60's (which still owns a flip phone, and i don't think he knows how to register with Google), 1 is in a mews (like an alley for you yanks) and it's not listed, the coffee shop in the same mews isn't listed either even tho every coffee shop on the high street is. If you open streetview you can walk through the high street but you can't get into the mews.
On the anecdotal evidence side there are 3 laundromats within about 2 min walk from my house, 2 are on a high street and can be found in Google, one is a part of a chain but the other is owned by a Persian guy who's way into his 60's (which still owns a flip phone, and i don't think he knows how to register with Google), 1 is in a mews (like an alley for you yanks) and it's not listed, the coffee shop in the same mews isn't listed either even tho every coffee shop on the high street is. If you open streetview you can walk through the high street but you can't get into the mews.
After a new controller came into our company we conducted an audit of all existing expenses. Turns out we were paying $277 a month for multiple full color Yellow page listings. The owners set these up well before we had a marketing department and just kept paying for years. We did not even have a copy of the Yellow pages in our building to see what our ad looked like. We have since cut this ad to the most basic listing, but are stuck paying the high rate until the new book is published in February 2016.
My point is that this is how they are still making money, thousands of business customers that are just used to paying them forever.
My point is that this is how they are still making money, thousands of business customers that are just used to paying them forever.
I've tried and failed to get my house excluded from their distribution. They hire a bunch of low wage people to just toss one on the lawn/porch of every house, and don't seem to pay any attention to the houses that have asked to not get one.
This irks me because, when I travel on business, having one of these sitting on my porch is a nice indication that I haven't been home all week, so please rob me. You can stop your mail, set up light timers, etc, but just try keeping the yellow pages away.
Sigh,
This irks me because, when I travel on business, having one of these sitting on my porch is a nice indication that I haven't been home all week, so please rob me. You can stop your mail, set up light timers, etc, but just try keeping the yellow pages away.
Sigh,
In a just world that would be considering littering, but somehow they get away with it.
I've wondered about filing a criminal complaint against them, if I could find out who is doing the delivery.
Have you ever considered talking to your neighbors?
I live in a small condo building with 35 units. We have two separate yellow pages companies leave nearly a pallet full of books at our place. I'm talking like 200+ pounds of paper.
Nobody in our building wants them, they go straight in our recycle bin. We have tried many times to get off of their list. I would love to know how to report them for littering or something. I hate these companies!
Nobody in our building wants them, they go straight in our recycle bin. We have tried many times to get off of their list. I would love to know how to report them for littering or something. I hate these companies!
Try looking for some business with Google, and then a Yellow Pages search engine (like the Canadian one: yellowpages.ca).
Dig through reams of spam, irrelevant references, review sites with misleading info, and non-local results? or scroll through nothing but business names and links?
No contest.
Just to find the opening hours of some business can be a hassle with a search engine.
Dig through reams of spam, irrelevant references, review sites with misleading info, and non-local results? or scroll through nothing but business names and links?
No contest.
Just to find the opening hours of some business can be a hassle with a search engine.
What's funny about your comment is that yellow pages uses google search and maps to compile it's results. Why not skip the cruft and go right to the original source?
I just did two identical searches in google.com and yp.com, and the results I got on yp were entirely different than those on google, and more numerous.
yp.com has a ton of listings directly submitted to them. They may use Google as one of many data sources, but they're by no means the original source.
yp.com has a ton of listings directly submitted to them. They may use Google as one of many data sources, but they're by no means the original source.
This is one way YP.com is transitioning to more online marketing. They have started to bundle their yp.com offerings with their print offerings.
If you buy a print ad, you can get a cut on the .com ad and placement depending on how much you're spending. I also noticed yp.com has the first 8-10 listings are paid ads, which go right below the fold. If you don't scroll down, you'd never notice the non-paid listings.
It's pretty sketchy to me, but I guess they're doing what they have to in order to survive
If you buy a print ad, you can get a cut on the .com ad and placement depending on how much you're spending. I also noticed yp.com has the first 8-10 listings are paid ads, which go right below the fold. If you don't scroll down, you'd never notice the non-paid listings.
It's pretty sketchy to me, but I guess they're doing what they have to in order to survive
That's actually the opposite direction of where they're moving. yp.com has little, if any, relation to the print business.
Which yellow pages where? Yellow pages isn't a specific company; it's a kind of floating trademark that exists in different ways in different countries and regions. My comment was specifically about yellowpages.ca that I have here in Canada.
> Why not skip the cruft and go right to the original source?
That depends on whether the compiling that you're skipping provides value. Why skip the gas station cruft and refine your own crude oil to make gasoline? Hey, no road tax!
> Why not skip the cruft and go right to the original source?
That depends on whether the compiling that you're skipping provides value. Why skip the gas station cruft and refine your own crude oil to make gasoline? Hey, no road tax!
That might be an apt description of 3rd tier clickbait 'yellowpages' sites. But the more prominent ones spend large sums of money buying and aggregating data feeds.
Things may have changed recently, but online YP searches have typically been just as frustrating. Most of the time, the top search results are paid promotions nowhere near me and sometimes not even relevant to my search.
I love when you do a search for a service (like a Plumber) "in your area" and the first result is some bozo who paid extra for higher listings but is 100 miles away. And of course the ad doesn't tell you where he is, so you get to call and find out that they aren't going to drive that far to fix a leak.
Did you actually try this? I just searched for a Vancouver business, the name of which I'm not exactly sure of, to find the hours. The yellowpages site didn't find the business at all but it was the first result in Google with direct links to their website, a map, and the closing time was listed right in the search results. It turns out I did get the business name slightly wrong.
Ironically, the 4th link on the page was a link to that business on yellowpages.ca -- so they did have a listing but I couldn't find it by seaching there.
Google is the one tool to do everything and it does things more than well enough that sites like yellowpages.ca are pretty irrelevant.
Ironically, the 4th link on the page was a link to that business on yellowpages.ca -- so they did have a listing but I couldn't find it by seaching there.
Google is the one tool to do everything and it does things more than well enough that sites like yellowpages.ca are pretty irrelevant.
I've found the business metadata (hours of operation, address, etc) that Google puts into the search results extremely unhelpful. The hours of operation and phone number, in particular, are very rarely correct for me. Most of the time, the address will be correct, but not always (when I search for my doctor's practice, the address is listed as 'Blvd.').
...but even with that, I'm still not going to yellopages.com. I'll just search for it and get it directly from their website.
...but even with that, I'm still not going to yellopages.com. I'll just search for it and get it directly from their website.
This info is usually self-reported by the business. If they don't have someone assigned to the job of making sure Google is up to date with their hours, it often won't happen. My company (a small web host that works with mostly local businesses) has a Google specialist whose job is about 70% keeping our client's metadata up to date with Google.
> I'll just search for it and get it directly from their website.
Ah, but not all businesses have a website though. Of those that do, not all have a website that is ranked on the first page of a Google result.
Ahead of the real thing are spam pages with junk info, many of which are deliberately designed to look as if they might be the official website.
Ah, but not all businesses have a website though. Of those that do, not all have a website that is ranked on the first page of a Google result.
Ahead of the real thing are spam pages with junk info, many of which are deliberately designed to look as if they might be the official website.
I used to work in agency media and one of the reasons I got out was because these companies are starting to cannibalize that industry pretty heavily.
They'll put a half-page ad up for $500 a month, but then also cover all of your digital media (advertising, website, making sure you're on Places and whatever then Bing equivalent is) for free.
They're nailing down these companies who see the web work as a value add for the yellow pages ad, when really it's the other way around. The yellow pages ad is relatively worthless, and they're massively overpaying for their web presence.
They'll put a half-page ad up for $500 a month, but then also cover all of your digital media (advertising, website, making sure you're on Places and whatever then Bing equivalent is) for free.
They're nailing down these companies who see the web work as a value add for the yellow pages ad, when really it's the other way around. The yellow pages ad is relatively worthless, and they're massively overpaying for their web presence.
Absolutely - one business I work with is essentially paying YP $900 a month to run a $300 a month AdWords campaign. They throw in a bunch of other "premium YP listing" but analytics shows no more than 12 referrals from YellowPages.
I also dealt with them when I was agency-side. Their offerings for YP.com were the most archaic garbage I'd ever seen. They had some crazy point system where you had to buy various "add-ons" to your listing to increase its point value. These add-ons were things like "red bold" which literally made your listing red and bold. The part that really got me was that these weren't just cosmetic--the total points you paid contributed to your actual placement on the page (ie. position). So in one case I did the math and figured out that even though we didn't have any video creative, if we bought the video add-on, the boost to our placement made it worth our while to just buy the add-on. If they had just let me buy points outright in an auction, I imagine it would be much smoother.
This horribly hilarious animation[1] of Yellow Pages sales reps is fairly accurate IMHO.
The frustrating part is they were able to drive volume for national businesses with local presence. The sneaky part is that they were fairly incestuous with other IYP's (Internet Yellow Pages sites...ie. directory sites) like SuperPages, etc. which we also used, but that traffic was obfuscated to make it look like it was YP.com driving it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98ZY1XMUpxI
This horribly hilarious animation[1] of Yellow Pages sales reps is fairly accurate IMHO.
The frustrating part is they were able to drive volume for national businesses with local presence. The sneaky part is that they were fairly incestuous with other IYP's (Internet Yellow Pages sites...ie. directory sites) like SuperPages, etc. which we also used, but that traffic was obfuscated to make it look like it was YP.com driving it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98ZY1XMUpxI
This opens up my mind to a lot of possibilities. Some poignant conversation starters for your local lunch group:
- What kind of investment returns did the stock of those bankrupted yellow pages make and at what cycles?
- What does it really take to kill an old technology?
- Is there a way to compete with established dying tech companies at their own game, or is it purely by trying to advance their users to your new tech?
- What does this say about transitional companies that possibly offer both the old AND the new techs, like the yellow pages that offer online versions? Are they going to move forward or are they just delaying their deaths a bit?
- What kind of talent is needed to sustain these kinds of businesses? It's going to look very different from the talent that grows new business, but I can't deny that they're both forms of talent.
Lots of food for thought.
- What kind of investment returns did the stock of those bankrupted yellow pages make and at what cycles?
- What does it really take to kill an old technology?
- Is there a way to compete with established dying tech companies at their own game, or is it purely by trying to advance their users to your new tech?
- What does this say about transitional companies that possibly offer both the old AND the new techs, like the yellow pages that offer online versions? Are they going to move forward or are they just delaying their deaths a bit?
- What kind of talent is needed to sustain these kinds of businesses? It's going to look very different from the talent that grows new business, but I can't deny that they're both forms of talent.
Lots of food for thought.
They're making big money on their online listings -- particularly from small business owners who know no better. A product I used to develop was a direct competitor to them (listings for a niche business market) and the sales team would tell horror stories of the aggressive sales techniques YP uses. They would basically bully small business owners (primarily in the older demographic) into paying exorbitant rates for a templated ("Custom!") web site with unreal promises of traffic and leads. These charts really seem to support that target market. It's one thing, if that's what your clients are actually using to find your business, but it's disgraceful when using your brand recognition to extort businesses. Reminiscent of the alleged Yelp shenanigans.
"Yellow Pages Ltd. is cutting 300 jobs by November in a corporate “realignment” designed to make the company leaner and free up dollars to invest in its digital ventures as it continues to move away from print directories."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/yellow-pag...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/yellow-pag...
I've seen people use the Yellow Pages as a filter before. For example, a website doesn't take too long to get up these days with templates, but a two-page color ad in the yellow pages costs thousands of dollars. If you can afford the Yellow Pages ad, you're also likely insured, etc. I personally do not use them, and I recycle them when they're delivered.
It makes sense, but I gotta say that I don't even take them into my home anymore—they go straight into the dumpster.
Same here (although I toss them in the recycling bin).
Not that I use the local YP much, but it probably depends to a large degree on how often you need local services like plumbers etc. To be sure, even as a homeowner, you tend to compile your own rolodex (to use an anachronism) of local service companies to use but every now and then you need something different that may not be easy to find on the Web. (Web presence is still very [EDIT] hit or miss for a lot of local companies.)
This is true and happened to me just last week. I used to belong to Angie's List, which helped a lot, but I so rarely used it that I dropped the service. I wished I kept my Yellow Pages last week when I wanted to look something up.
Many a yellow page has sacrificed itself to keep me warm in the winter.
Me too. For a while, I lived in a largish place with two nice fireplaces. Every catalog, junk mail, etc... went right in. There was some door to door guy who would come by asking about my interest in various things and offering catalogs.
Question: "Sir, how do you use catalogs and the yellow pages?"
Answer: "Home heating, please sign me up for more."
He laughed his ass off, "Seriously?"
To which I replied, "No Joke, why not?"
The conversation moved on from there, and we did discuss how and if people even care about these things, and he indicated many elderly people absolutely did. Turns out, he was door to door in my neighborhood due to a fairly concentrated set of these people who do buy and follow up on direct mail, catalog and use yellow pages regularly.
I suspect YP is going to face a generational fall off of business over the next 10 years as their prime demographics age out.
In addition to YP, there is the whole "direct response" type of campaign, most often executed via the mail, used heavy by televangelists, and others who would be associated with late night TV infomercials. The sweet spot demographic is over 50 for all of this, and as people age out, there just won't be the kind of back fill we saw through the 80's and 90's.
Question: "Sir, how do you use catalogs and the yellow pages?"
Answer: "Home heating, please sign me up for more."
He laughed his ass off, "Seriously?"
To which I replied, "No Joke, why not?"
The conversation moved on from there, and we did discuss how and if people even care about these things, and he indicated many elderly people absolutely did. Turns out, he was door to door in my neighborhood due to a fairly concentrated set of these people who do buy and follow up on direct mail, catalog and use yellow pages regularly.
I suspect YP is going to face a generational fall off of business over the next 10 years as their prime demographics age out.
In addition to YP, there is the whole "direct response" type of campaign, most often executed via the mail, used heavy by televangelists, and others who would be associated with late night TV infomercials. The sweet spot demographic is over 50 for all of this, and as people age out, there just won't be the kind of back fill we saw through the 80's and 90's.
> For a while, I lived in a largish place with two nice fireplaces. Every catalog, junk mail, etc... went right in.
Phonebooks don't seem to burn very well in a fireplace without careful tending; oxygen doesn't get between the pages well enough.
Phonebooks don't seem to burn very well in a fireplace without careful tending; oxygen doesn't get between the pages well enough.
Yes.
What I would often do is over extend the binding and tear the book. If you take a minute or two and over flex the binding, you can get it to stand up with the pages spread out. Put other bits around the book, and the whole thing burns fairly well. Sure, some poking about might be needed well into the burn, but it's not all that much.
It's true, just full on burning the book never works. But sections of it work just fine. Burn a few calories prepping the thing, and it's possible to get a reasonable burn.
Frankly, I wasn't too worried about it being 100 percent complete. A few unburnt bits were no big deal. And it was nice ambiance.
What I would often do is over extend the binding and tear the book. If you take a minute or two and over flex the binding, you can get it to stand up with the pages spread out. Put other bits around the book, and the whole thing burns fairly well. Sure, some poking about might be needed well into the burn, but it's not all that much.
It's true, just full on burning the book never works. But sections of it work just fine. Burn a few calories prepping the thing, and it's possible to get a reasonable burn.
Frankly, I wasn't too worried about it being 100 percent complete. A few unburnt bits were no big deal. And it was nice ambiance.
Specific applications are usually better than their generic competitor. A gerneric web search might be able to find some of the same information but the service yell and yellow pages provides is really vastly more effective. I genuinely couldn't find a stationary shop locally using google and maps this week a task I completed in 30 seconds on yell.co.uk.
I am not looking forward to the inevitable death because I dont think there is a viable alternative right now and certainly not one with the quality of data that makes yell so useful. Local business searches are just awful everywhere but on yell which is why its still alive.
I am not looking forward to the inevitable death because I dont think there is a viable alternative right now and certainly not one with the quality of data that makes yell so useful. Local business searches are just awful everywhere but on yell which is why its still alive.
Its like what my 7-year-old asked me the other day, "what is a phonebook?"
It's what you sit on when you have dinner with the adults!
It is body armor for the poor man. Just tape one or three under your shirt before you open the door at night.
These days I use Google Maps scoped to my neighbourhood and do a search that way. Trying to do the same with web search is an exercise in frustration.
The one nice thing about the yellow pages is that it does provide a results filter, in that you're going to find local businesses willing to pay money to show up in a book.
Having a filter for "serious, local-only businesses" is a useful thing to have. IMO online yellow pages doesn't have that. Yelp and the like are sort of close but their UI and search-locality aren't as tight as they should be to serve this purpose.
The one nice thing about the yellow pages is that it does provide a results filter, in that you're going to find local businesses willing to pay money to show up in a book.
Having a filter for "serious, local-only businesses" is a useful thing to have. IMO online yellow pages doesn't have that. Yelp and the like are sort of close but their UI and search-locality aren't as tight as they should be to serve this purpose.
Loves getting the yellow pages: it's the best way to get cheap paper for firing the charcoal grill.
If you want to stop phone books from being delivered (and you're in the U.S.) start with https://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/
A lot of sofas need an extra leg.
Heck, Apple and Siri are worse. Whoever did the location part of maps missed a lot.