Yahoo has acquired online event-planning and social networking site Upcoming.org, which is expected to provide Yahoo with more content about local communities and bolster its local search capabilities. The site provides tools for sharing observations about local events and identifying common areas of interests.
Both Yahoo and Google have been placing emphasis on local search as more people change the way they search, relying on the web rather than print yellow pages.
Highlights from a recent Hitwise report:
“..Google remains the dominant consumer search engine, claiming 59.2 percent of searches across major engines in July – a 14 percent increase from July 2004. However, visits to Yahoo Local were 4.4 times the number to Google Local in July, although the latter is growing at a faster rate.
The top three search engines – Google, Yahoo Search and MSN Search – accounted for 93.5 percent of U.S. internet searches across major engines in July, according to new data from Hitwise, with Yahoo and MSN accounting for 28.8 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively.
Unlike its competitors, Google does not have a portal to drive traffic to its search service, whereas Yahoo received 73 percent of its search visits from its main portals, and MSN received 61 percent from its.
In local search, Yahoo is still sovereign. local.yahoo.com had more than quadruple the number of visits to local.google.com in July, but Google Local’s market share increased 61 percent between February and July 2005, whereas Yahoo Local’s grew 14 percent…..”
Hitwise
Via Marketingvox
Via AP
