Marchex Goes Local With New Search Network
Marchex has merged its catalogue of domains with business listings and reviews from local search firm Open List. This process has been in development for the past year.
The company has taken off the ad links from about half of its 200,000 direct navigation domains and replaced them with reviews, local search listings and search functions with the purpose of raising relevance and consumer loyalty.
Users on sites such as SeattleVeterinarian.com, as well as zip code domains that reach 96% of the postal areas in the U.S. will now be able to use local search interfaces specifically organized around business categories related to the domain in question.
Matthew Berk, lead search architect at Marchex and founder of Open List described the changes as a guided process saying, “It’s walking someone thru the decision process, so you can help them ask the questions they didn’t necessarily know to ask up front. The Open List experience has always been about refinement.”
Ads on the relaunched properties are a combination of Marchex and Yahoo ads. Marchex has a relationship with AT&T that sources their ads. The company claims 31 million unique IP addresses spanning over 200,000 domains. Open List’s brand appears on all the sites affiliated with the merger although OpenList.com has not been updated with the company’s enhanced vertical data.
Company domains offer 15 million listings for products, business and services, across 20,000 categories not unlike the yellow pages listings. Search engine visibility and the direct navigation of traffic are the points of interest in generic domains for the firm. They have begun research of user behavior to better target visitors. The only information they will make public of their studies so far, is that the practice of direct navigation has not declined since they’ve begun purchasing domain real estate.
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Reader Comments.
how can these clandestine socalled ad sites will hold up in the age of the naked internet will be fun to watch. Its 110 degrees outside and there wearing a wool trench coat and want now want to stand out in the sun. Advertisers want to see some flesh as to the quality of there placement. most of these massive domain porfolio hide in a shoebox sites are garbage. You dont need 200,000 domains to channel a message. One good domain ran properly is all you need. My guess is we will never see this platform showcased because it would be em-bare-assing and marchex would definitely get a sunburn.
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