According to Google Trends, it appears there may have been a significant drop in traffic from Google referrals to major Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs) sites:
Yellowpages.com, Superpages.com, Yelp.com, Citysearch.com, and WhitePages.com all look like they’re dipping in sync.
Is it possible that IYPs have fallen under the treads of a Panda update?
It’s still perhaps early to tell, but it’s looking like they’re all experiencing something similar.
ShareThisTags: IYPs, Panda Update
Now take a look at yellowbook… I’m unable to verify, but looks suspicious. http://trends.google.com/websites?q=yellowbook.com
Very interesting, Simon! Though, I don’t believe that uptick is enough to explain the drop experienced by the others.
So, I wonder what’s different with Yellowbook compared to the others?
I’m not sure why yellowbook’s traffic increased, but I can say that for the past couple of months there were Google Places results showing up for more and more queries, so I’d think that could be a reason.
Interesting indeed. I’m pretty sure that Panda + the fact that Google don’t show 3rd party reviews on SERPs anymore are couple of the main reasons for that drop.
Very interesting. This decline of Internet yellow pages search is certain to continue as the effect of Google’s algorithims take their toll and consumers instinctivly cull search results.
SpyFu sheds some interesting insight into the spike in SEM spend by yellow pages publishers to coincide with the close period of major print directories, thus giving their sales reps an inflated visual aid of their online prowess to present to the already “twice shy” SMB advertiser.
http://tinyurl.com/6ayqu5p
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It’s clear that Google wants only sites with top class content with good user experience to be on their first pages. No wonder many sites like the IYPs suffered.