How Do the Yellow Pages Still Make Money?

Re:How Do the Yellow Pages Still Make Money? by michael_h on Thursday October 08, 2015 @12:58PM (#10354012)

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.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How Do the Yellow Pages Still Make Money? by Kluny on Thursday October 08, 2015 @01:39PM (#10354419)

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.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How Do the Yellow Pages Still Make Money? by kazinator on Thursday October 08, 2015 @01:42PM (#10354437)

> 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.

[ Parent | on HN ]