"Local" Local Sites Beat "National" Local Sites at Local Search

LeeAnn Prescott of Hitwise put together an interesting snapshot of the local search market from a national perspective. Will national sites like the ones graphed below win the local search game?

Prescott's analysis of the data includes:

Based on traffic to Local.com, Yahoo! Local and Live Local Search, it does not appear that interest in local search is increasing, but the substantial growth in Yelp's traffic indicates that the social networking/local search combo is an effective means of engaging users around local content.

As I look at this, I get the impression that national sites may not win the local search game. As far as I can tell, the only national site that really does local search well is Ticketmaster. When it comes to restaurants, events, bars, clubs, and other non-concert or sporting events covered by Ticketmaster, local sites seem to cover local scenes better than any national site to date.

I believe interest in local search is increasing, but not interest in local search provided by national sites.

If mapping was removed from the equation, truly local sites would do fare even better. However, since mapping is a key feature in the local search equation, local sites will either need to figure out how to elegantly integrate mapping into their offerings, or national sites will have to figure out how to become experts at local content.

Mike, I'm sure the Onebox changes is responsible for the spike in Google Maps traffic. However, if Google provides a great user experience for people trying Maps for the first time, it could become a popular destination for local searches.

I tried using Google Maps for a "restaurants new O'Hare" search two nights ago with little luck. Then my coworker tried searching for restaurants using our car's GPS system. Neither system came up with anything interesting (plenty of KFC and Denny's locations). Of course, this could have been because there were no other options in the area.

We just started driving and managed to find a nice Italian place close to our hotel. I'm not aware of any web based system that would have found that place today.

I’d also agree that Google’s spike is most likely one-box related, but I must admit – GoogleMaps (especially for mobile) is superior. Yahoo! has (or had) the local content nailed with their YP product, but that’s now withered-away. IYPs still win in the “completeness and accuracy” category overall, but of course algorithmic search players have an incredible opportunity to beat them at their own game (again, completeness and accuracy of content is the key). Local niche search properties? Over time – through the continued evolution of the market they may become the most relevant players; TRULY local SERPs/editorial/advertising and community ties (commercial or otherwise) is what I believe will drive growth and usage.

Comments

1. Posted by: Mike Blumenthal on March 9, 2007 8:47 AM:

Hi Ed-

I read your post with interest and it forced me to wonder about the how much of Google Maps and Yahoo Local is local search and how much is Map use...

However, I recently wrote a wrote a post analyzing the Hitwise data and came to the conclusion that the dramatic rise in Google Maps traffic was due to the recent Local Onebox update. If that is the case then the huge surge in traffic (more than all of the pure local sites combined) was likely from the types of local search that the Local Onebox represents and not likely from just Map usage.

Mike Blumenthal
----------------
Understanding Google Maps and Yahoo Local Search

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