Yahoo! Adds Local Search Service

Yahoo! released a test of their new local search service which allows users to find local, neighborhood information on the Web. This is the latest in an intense rivalry among search providers to attract users and revenue from the local search and classified online advertising markets. Other rival search providers like Google, Ask Jeeves and Amazon’s A9 are constantly adding new tools to tap into the local market, which is estimated to reach as much as $5.1 billion by 2009, according to the Kelsey Group.

Yahoo’s new service, located at http://beta.local.yahoo.com, allows users to search for events, businesses and recommendations within a city while also providing links to their other related services, including Yahoo Classifieds, Yahoo Movies, and Yahoo’s HotJobs employment service. Users can search in particular neighborhoods within a city. For example there are 18 neighborhoods within the city of Boston, including the South End, Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and so on. Users can find restaurants, hair salons, hotels, pet services and other businesses, as well as user ratings, or recommendations, for many listings.

As for the competition, Google’s local search service now includes their popular mapping tools and additional business information like hours of operation, forms of payments, menus for restaurants and so on. On Amazon’s A9 Web search unit, visitors can take a virtual walk down a street and actually view the businesses there. Clearly, local search is the ‘in’ thing right now.