A few days back I stated that the new Verizon SuperPages would be a much more functional idea if they also added the pay per click dutch auction model to their category priced listings. Today they did. SuperPages is to use FindWhat to suppliment its local listings with national and local pay per click ads.

FindWhat also recently purchased Comet Systems.

Many of the Yellow Pages type companies are learning that their content has value online.

On March the 1st SuperPages, Verizon's Internet Yellow Pages website, will launch a redesigned website which includes pay per click advertising. Duncan Parry previews the PPC product that will be on offer and asks James Palma, Directory of Strategy, how SuperPages aims to sell PPC advertising to local businesses. - from PayPerClickAnalysis.com article

• Verison is planning on charging by category to help business save time.

• The associated prices will weed out much of the advertising from the smaller unique competitors who are the ones that actually add the true value to the Verison SuperPages site.
• A much better way to price it would be to sell as a hybrid. Offer the category listings, and also sell keyword listings in a Dutch auction. Assuming they could place the direct matches about their category listings, this would increase the quality of their product and allow them to sell more ad space.

Local Search Down Under

Sensis was recently featured in an article which shows how powerful they are in the Australlian advertising market. They believe they will be able to compete with Google for product search due to their strong ability to integrate location with the product.

"The Yellow Pages is a search book. We don't call it that because it's not trendy."

"Our biggest differentiator (from Google) is we have all this local content. So if (you) go to Google today and search for a restaurant in Kew, you might get two restaurants."

Sensis currently combines search results from whitepages.com.au, yellowpages.com.au, whereis.com.au, and cityseach.com.au. One thing people forget is that the Yellow Pages is just a single book or database which Google can easily fold into or bolt onto their product.

Currently Google is not using Local Search that way because it does not add enough value to their product. Mathematics is amazing and search is in its infancy. Google will not likely fall victim to the Yellow Pages. This is a simple question of "Who is really replacing who?"

As far as Google AdWords Goes there are three main book or reports on the subject that I know of. I recently wrote my SEO Book and am starting to advertise it on Google AdWords.

I have already read Andrew Goodman's Google AdWords: 21 Pay-Per-Click Campaign Secrets Your Competition Doesn't Know twice, and think it is one of the best search engine reports on the market. ($69)

The other two main reports reports out there are the one created by Perry Marshall and Chris Carpender's Google Cash. I looked at the Google Cash one and saw that they are adding the Perry Marshall report in as an added bonus and are selling the Google Cash package cheaper than his report alone. Google Cash is directed toward affiliate sales. Generally I do not like affiliate sales as they do not build value, but I figure I should be able to learn some more great information between the Perry Marshall's Google AdWords report and the Google Cash report. It cost $49 if you want to give Google Cash a shot.

I will report a review of Google Cash and Perry Marshall's Google AdWords reports later this month or early next month. Either way the package comes with a 90 day money back guarantee.

People use the phrase Search Engine Wars so many times that it's a joke. I think wars are no laughing matter, but the excessive use of "search engine wars" is somewhat excessive and funny.

I feel leftout though, as I have not used the phrase "search engine wars" before this post. I figured that all battles have local fronts. Thus I am extending the "search engine wars" message to the local battle fields. Local search engine wars: "CitySearch's performance-based search advertising program added 24,000 local businesses in its first nine months, parent company InterActiveCorp said yesterday.
IAC said the Los Angeles-based local search service added 3,000 performance-based listings in the last three months of 2003, ending the year nearly halfway to IAC CEO Barry Diller's goal of 50,000 local search advertisers by the end of 2004. Pay-for-performance revenue at CitySearch rose 14 percent from the previous quarter. "
(source DMnews)

Some of the current top competitors in this market are CitySearch, SmartPages, SwitchBoard, and Verizon SuperPages. Big search players like Overture and Google are also going to eat up a lion share of this market. Kanoodle will also sneak into this market, as many of their employees were associated with the formerly highly targetable Sprinks product (which Google swallowed whole.)

More on the local search engine wars from a few months ago:
Search Engine Watch: Local Search Series

Much of the local search engine marketing news is also covered by the Kelsey Group.

Here is a totally random spam which shows how hard it is too trip a spam filter. Note the keyword density of this page for Keasley (and how tired I must have been to have my spelling that far off!)