K-Praxis - Topic: Local Search - Location Based Search and Internet Yellow Pages: The Right Way Ahead-Print

Location Based Search and Internet Yellow Pages: The Right Way Ahead
October 23, 2003

One of the most interesting space in the search engine market place in the near future, is going to be the local turf battle between Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) and location based search provided by major search engines. We had discussed the location based search phenomena two weeks back (K-Praxis - Location Based Search: An Evaluation). This week in Alexandria, Virginia, Digital Directories & Interactive Local Media Summit - organized by Kelsey Group - is attempting to map the future of online directories and location based search. We are not participating in the event, but in the context of this key event we could provide some insights into key issues involved and foresee what could take place there!

Definition of Location Based Search

We did try to define location based search in our earlier article and it is important to summarize that definition again in order to refresh our memories:

Location based search could loosely be defined as the ability to retrieve online information in relation to its proximity to a geographical location. It is simple yet very powerful tool to pinpoint information based on its location matching it with a search term.

Scope of Location Based Search

Location-based search engine would naturally look at two aspects while trying to retrieve information from the web:

Search Term: Here search terms will usually be related to something you are searching for locally. These search terms indicate mostly a service, a business or place like a restaurant or business. So one would either search for "information management" services in Atlanta, GA (very specific to business/service context), or, one would obviously look for hotels, doctors, escort services, etc. Note that these keywords are talking more about specific entities rather than abstract entities. A workable location based search engine will understand this differentiation. However, location based search need not be limited to non-abstract terms.

Geographic Location: Here the geographic location could potentially refer to many contexts: it could either be the location of the owner of the web page, mapped through the whois database; location mentioned in the address given on the page(e.g, an address of a business set up); location name that occurs anywhere on the page. In order to show the more relevant searches first, the search engine might have to rank the searches in terms of its precision based on importance given to one or more types of location contexts vis-a-vis number of occurrences in the search results.

Conclusion: An Opportunity to Monetize Local Advertising, Without Compromising on the Quality of Search

Given this definition and the scope of location based search, we concluded that location based search as defined by Google and as defined by IYPs (through examples of Yahoo Yellow Pages, CitySearch and even by the Overture Local Search Demo) in a way are two different entities all together, even though both of them are trying to reach the same goal.

Despite the fact that commercially both of these approaches will help vendors monetize targeted advertising, the fact remains that IYPs have some unique content-leverage and some very special relationship with advertisers. May be the way out of this battle could be that IYPs and search engines forge new relationships that will be mutually beneficial - not the way IYPs are rushing to cash in on Google Sponsored Links Program - OR IYPs learn to leverage their content with adoption of intelligent technologies, processes and methodologies based information management.

	Making sense of online textual information and information management technologies

	Location Based Search and Internet Yellow Pages: The Right Way Ahead October 23, 2003 One of the most interesting space in the search engine market place in the near future, is going to be the local turf battle between Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) and location based search provided by major search engines. We had discussed the location based search phenomena two weeks back (K-Praxis - Location Based Search: An Evaluation). This week in Alexandria, Virginia, Digital Directories & Interactive Local Media Summit - organized by Kelsey Group - is attempting to map the future of online directories and location based search. We are not participating in the event, but in the context of this key event we could provide some insights into key issues involved and foresee what could take place there! Definition of Location Based Search We did try to define location based search in our earlier article and it is important to summarize that definition again in order to refresh our memories: Location based search could loosely be defined as the ability to retrieve online information in relation to its proximity to a geographical location. It is simple yet very powerful tool to pinpoint information based on its location matching it with a search term. Scope of Location Based Search Location-based search engine would naturally look at two aspects while trying to retrieve information from the web: Search Term: Here search terms will usually be related to something you are searching for locally. These search terms indicate mostly a service, a business or place like a restaurant or business. So one would either search for "information management" services in Atlanta, GA (very specific to business/service context), or, one would obviously look for hotels, doctors, escort services, etc. Note that these keywords are talking more about specific entities rather than abstract entities. A workable location based search engine will understand this differentiation. However, location based search need not be limited to non-abstract terms. Geographic Location: Here the geographic location could potentially refer to many contexts: it could either be the location of the owner of the web page, mapped through the whois database; location mentioned in the address given on the page(e.g, an address of a business set up); location name that occurs anywhere on the page. In order to show the more relevant searches first, the search engine might have to rank the searches in terms of its precision based on importance given to one or more types of location contexts vis-a-vis number of occurrences in the search results. Conclusion: An Opportunity to Monetize Local Advertising, Without Compromising on the Quality of Search Given this definition and the scope of location based search, we concluded that location based search as defined by Google and as defined by IYPs (through examples of Yahoo Yellow Pages, CitySearch and even by the Overture Local Search Demo) in a way are two different entities all together, even though both of them are trying to reach the same goal. Despite the fact that commercially both of these approaches will help vendors monetize targeted advertising, the fact remains that IYPs have some unique content-leverage and some very special relationship with advertisers. May be the way out of this battle could be that IYPs and search engines forge new relationships that will be mutually beneficial - not the way IYPs are rushing to cash in on Google Sponsored Links Program - OR IYPs learn to leverage their content with adoption of intelligent technologies, processes and methodologies based information management.