Local Search Finally Living Up To Its Promise
Nearly a decade ago, I believed in the power and promise of locally focused Web sites and applications. Back then, I was COO of About.com and in hindsight can say that I was a bit ahead of market adoption, to say the least!
Context & Ripple Effects
The author was COO of About.com when he first backed locally focused web sites nearly a decade ago, and concedes in this column that he was well ahead of market adoption. The piece lands amid a cluster of 2007 moves that suggest the timing has shifted: Ask.com laid out its reworked vision of local search results back in March, and May brought localguides.com explicitly fusing local listings with social and vertical content.
First-order effects
- Ask.com's rebuilt local product now competes for queries against a class of locally focused sites and applications that, per the author's argument, are finally drawing real market adoption rather than early-adopter traffic.
- localguides.com's bet that local discovery belongs alongside social and vertical content gains a credibility boost from a veteran publisher arguing the demand curve has arrived.
Second-order effects
- Publishers and startups that spent the last decade treating local as a side channel face pressure to bundle it into social and vertical properties the way localguides.com does, or cede the layer entirely.
- Advertisers who wrote off local web spending during the false starts of the late 1990s become reachable again, raising the stakes for whichever engine or site can package local inventory credibly.
Third-order effects
- If the adoption curve holds, local stops being a niche feature and becomes a structural battleground where search engines, directories, and social-vertical hybrids compete over the same small-business ad dollar — a contest whose shape in 2007 is still genuinely open.
The trend: Local search is crossing from a long-delayed promise into mainstream query and advertising behavior, with 2007's engine redesigns and social-vertical launches marking the inflection.