Yellow Pages Association President Addresses Internet Yellow Pages Usage Increase at The Kelsey Group Directory Driven Commerce (DDC) Conference

RESTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Yellow Pages Association™ (YPA™) President Neg Norton today announced at The Kelsey Group Directory Driven Commerce (DDC) Conference that Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) usage grew 27 percent in 2006. According to new research from comScore, Inc., 3.3 billion searches were conducted in 2006 compared to 2.6 billion searches in 2005.

Norton also announced that YPA has selected comScore to track annual Internet Yellow Pages usage. comScore’s global panel tracks the online behavior of more than two million consumers who grant comScore permission to confidentially capture their Internet browsing and transaction behavior.

“The Yellow Pages industry remains vibrant with selected geographic and vertical markets seeing increased print competition as well as Yellow Pages publishers investing considerable time and resources into keeping their products the local search authority,” said Norton in his panel discussion, “Why Yellow Pages Still Matter”. “As the local search industry continues to grow, we are pleased to partner with comScore and align our industry with other online media to best capture IYP usage.”

Additional comScore findings regarding IYP usage include:

• Average # of monthly IYP searchers up 46 percent: 63.1 million IYP searchers per month in 2006, compared to 43.2 million IYP searchers per month in 2005.
• IYP represented 35 percent of total local commercial searches in 2006, up from 34 percent in 2005.
• 2007 IYP search queries up 14 percent: consumers conducted more than 1.85 billion IYP search queries in the first six months of 2007 compared to 1.62 billion in the first six months of 2006.

Norton also spoke about the overall Yellow Pages industry: “In 2006, as expected, the Knowledge Networks/SRI print Yellow Pages usage figure declined 7.6 percent to 13.4 billion references, however, IYP usage is continuing to dramatically increase. We expect the industry to remain strong with print usage stabilizing and Internet usage continuing to grow.”

For more information about the Yellow Pages Association, please visit http://www.ypassociation.org. For a who’s who directory of Search Engines, Internet Yellow Pages and Local Search Tools, please visit http://www.localsearchguide.org.

About The Yellow Pages Association

Originally founded in 1975 as the National Yellow Pages Service Association (NYPSA), the Yellow Pages Association (YPA) is the largest trade organization of a print and digital media industry valued at more than $26 billion worldwide ($14 billion in the U.S.). Association members include Yellow Pages publishers, who produce products that account for almost 90 percent of the Yellow Pages revenue generated in the U.S. and Canada. Members also include the industry's international, national and local sales forces, certified marketing representatives (CMRs) and associate members, a group of industry stakeholders that include Yellow Pages advertisers, vendors and suppliers. The Association has members in 29 countries.

Neg Norton is president of the Association. Dennis Payne, president and CEO of AT&T Advertising and Publishing, is the Board Chair. YPA board member companies include Ambassador Publications, the Association of Directory Marketing, DataNational/Volt Directory Systems, Idearc Inc., Marquette Group, R.H. Donnelley, RR Donnelley, Wahlstrom Group and Yellow Pages Group.

The Yellow Pages medium provides a powerful return on investment for advertisers and can serve as the cornerstone of an integrated advertising media mix. For more information, please visit the YPA Web site at www.ypassociation.org or call (908) 286-2380. To learn more about Yellow Pages advertising, visit www.buyyellow.com. For a Who's Who of Internet Yellow Pages and search engines, visit www.localsearchguide.org.