Web design & marketing tips by Ironpaper

Google wins local search in UK

Written by Ironpaper | Aug 18, 2012 3:40:06 PM

Based on a study by Implied Intelligence, Google has the most accurate and thorough local search database in the UK. US reports also show the same results.

Previously yellow pages websites like Superpages and the Bing search engine beat Google in previous US tests, but that has changed.

The Implied Intelligence tests were based on a sample of  1,400 local business records. Each of which owned websites and were hand checked and verified. All of the records contained data such as name, address, telephone number and additional attributes like hours of operation. Franchises and chain stores were excluded from the local business search results study.

Implied Intelligence scored each of the directory and local sites on a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best) according to the following criteria:

  • Record coverage
  • Number of duplicates
  • Phone errors
  • Address errors
  • Coverage re homepage URL
  • Accuracy re homepage URL
  • Number of records with opening hours
  • Number of records with additional information

The results are as follows:

Above: Results of study for local business search results