Thursday, April 12, 2007
Local Search Still in a Fog
The other day I wrote about the need for a guide to sort through the various local and vertical search properties, and little did I know that one already existed.The LocalSearchGuide is a bare bones guide to the finding local pages and vertical search engines. Produced by the Internet Yellow Pages Association, SEMPO and others, the guide details the advertising options for the yellow page services (eg. pay per click, per call, etc.).
I'd like them to offer customer ratings, because boy do I have things to share about Superpages.com, which is one of the sponsors of the site. My experience with IdearcMedia, which runs Superpages, has been disastrous. First, speaking to two different sales reps revealed wildly different pricing for its print ads, so be careful to make sure you are getting the best deal possible. Also, two different online sales reps called me at the same time, so I was telling one that I wasn't interested because of the high prices when I had to place her on hold to tell the same story to the other sales rep.
After I agreed to a print buy, the company totally hosed the ad by misspelling "massage" as "message," despite the correction I submitted that the company confirmed it received.
Irate, I asked for my money back, but instead the company offered free web ads to make up for their admitted error. One month and more than a dozen phone calls later, they have yet to fix mistakes to the online listing. I have worked with CitySearch, YellowPages.com, and Yahoo and Google for local search advertising, and all of those experiences have been easy and positive. I just applied for a free local listing on MSN, and the company says it will be 30-60 days before the listing will appear, while the other services have taken 10 days or less.
Superpages online ads are also more than double what their competitors charge. So for me it's a big thumbs down on Superpages customer service. Now let's see if my ads generate any business...
Posted By John Gartner at 09:17 AM
Permanent Link: Local Search Still in a Fog
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