A tremendous surge in the annual growth of local search far outpaced growth of overall web search, according to a study conducted by comScore and released by the Yellow Pages Association.
The study found that local search grew 58 percent in 2008, reaching an annual total of 15.7 billion searches. By comparison, overall US web core searches grew at a much smaller rate of 21 percent year-over-year, nearing 137 billion searches by the end of 2008. Local searches stand at 12 percent of core searches on the top 5 portals.
Buoyed by the growth in local search, Internet Yellow Pages and locally-focused online business directories also saw double-digit growth of 23 percent in the same period, totaling 4.6 billion searches in 2008.
As more users conduct local searches, exposure to sponsored links for Yellow Pages data is increasing as well. Year-over-year, Internet Yellow Pages sites have seen their exposure to sponsored links increase 50 percent to reach 353 million in the month of December 2008 alone, demonstrating the increasing need for local business information.
Originally posted on March 30, 2009 @ 9:00 am