A few weeks ago Canpages acquired Toronto-based ZipLocal for an undisclosed amount of money to add to the growing local search firm and directory publisher that has 3.5 million unique visitors per month, and 80 publications. Local search has been one of those promises that we’ve heard for years but has never really lived up to the hype. For a company that has only been around since 2006 Canpages has done well in the local search vertical which has helped it to reach 8 million households and businesses across Canada. ZipLocal (or Red TO as it was originally known) has struggled from the moment it came out the gate, even with its $1 million in venture funding from JL Albright. The have managed to bring in 2,300 new customers and had a reach of 695,000 unique visitors. According to Olivier Vincent, President and CEO of Canpages, “Canpages is already Canada’s fastest growing local search company because of our commitment to innovation and delivering the best search experience possible to consumers.” Perhaps this is a case where a pure-online business does need print to help it grow and reach critical mass?
There has also been stiff competition from 411.ca, another local search sites. Of course we can’t talk search without mentioned Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, each has come out with their own local search strategy, Google of course being the dominate player on the internet commands well over 50% of the search market share.
Personally I can’t recall the last time that I actually picked up the white pages or yellow pages, as a matter of fact there has been a yellow pages book at the bottom of the office building for 2 months so there must be others feeling the same way. I do use the various local search sites not for business to business information but more for person information in very rare instances. I was a bit curious as to what others felt about Canpages and other local search tools so decided to post the question on my Facebook wall, “Do you still visit sites such as Yellow Pages or CanPages for directory listings?” Some of the responses included “Once in a bluemoon online never offline”, “Never! I use google search for directory listings.”, “Not if i can help it. Canada411 if necessary though.”, “yes i do”, “nope. canada411 or google.” Within a 5 hour span of posting the question there were 20 responses with most indicating in some way that Canpages is not their default local search engine. Sounds like they might have a tough road ahead of them as they look to expand in the online local search market.
Overall based on the feedback from my quick poll it sounds like there is still room for local search in Canada, but who will be the leader?
Founder of Profectio of business sites which includes 
