Yahoo has redesigned Yahoo Local, but it still needs work. Meanwhile, Google has launched a notable door-to-door campaign to boost its own local results.
The Yahoo redesign aims to invite more user-generated content, such as reviews and provides search for things like leisure activities, movies and events in specific cities.
We tried a search for restaurants in San Francisco. Yahoo returned a number of results, but when we wanted to see user reviews on the top entries, Yahoo kept us guessing about where to find them. We finally tried clicking through to the individual restaurant profile pages, and found them. That's too bad, because it doesn't have to be that way.
If you go to Yelp, for example, and do the same search, Yelp provides a hyperlink to the reviews from that first page, which keeps us from guessing and fumbling around. Other than that, it is surprising how much Yahoo and Yelp are carbon copies of each other. See screenshots below. Yahoo is first, and Yelp is second (they're both partial shots, because of space reasons, but note the exact same map feature, which slides down the page on the right with you as you scroll down).
Yahoo is going up against Microsoft, Google, Yelp and others to grab a share of the local online advertising market estimated by the Kelsey Group to be worth $2.6 billion by 2011.
The key Yahoo features launched include the following • Weekender – Offers a weekly selection of events, movies (including show times and reviews), dining picks, Flickr photos, and more to help people plan their weekends. • Comment on User Reviews – Gives the option of adding comments to user reviews, adding a new level of user-engagement and authenticity to reviews. • Improved Relevancy Algorithm – Makes search results even more accurate by effectively taking user reviews and other UGC-related items into consideration. • More “Local Buzz” – Shows the top-moving search terms in your hometown with a new search cloud and exposes the most recent reviews of businesses in your area to see what people are buzzing about. • Best Local Events – Taps into the Upcoming social events database to include a more prominent display of the best events in your hometown. New venue pages also integrate upcoming events and more detailed venue information. • Most Popular – Highlights the best of a city in the key categories of Restaurants, Health & Beauty, and Home & Garden. • My Local Improvements – A new “save for later” feature allows people to save businesses or events to their My Local profile. The added ability to upload a user photo or avatar is designed to create a more personal and vibrant user community.
Meanwhile, Google has launched something called the Business Referral Representative, explained more here.
Google is offering individuals up to $10 to visit local businesses and tell them about Google Maps and Google AdWords, collect information (such as hours of operation and types of payment accepted), and take digital photos of the business.
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