Russian search giant Yandex announced that it will be licensing data from Nokia-owned Navteq to offer better and more comprehensive maps coverage around the world: Yandex . . . has purchased a license for digital maps supplied by the leading global location content provider, NAVTEQ. These digital maps will be used in the development of a detailed world map for the Yandex.Maps service. NAVTEQ has provided Yandex with maps from all over the world, including highly detailed maps of Europe, North America, Australia and developed countries in Asia. These maps show intercity motorways, urban tra [...]

Related Topics: Microsoft: Bing | Search Engines: Other Search Engines | Search Engines: Yandex | Yahoo: Maps & Local

Former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will be remembered mainly as a cost cutter who outsourced numerous functions to third parties. A partial list of those includes outsourcing Search to Microsoft, Shopping to PriceGrabber, Real Estate to Zillow and Maps to Nokia/Navteq. And now, the new Nokia-powered Yahoo Maps (NokiHoo) have just gone live in the US and Canada: maps.yahoo.com; espanol.maps.yahoo.com; ca.maps.yahoo.com and qc.maps.yahoo.com. NokiHoo maps are also available in other places around the world, such as Europe, but Yahoo doesn't have the data or has incomplete data outside of the ar [...]

Related Topics: Top News | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships

Yahoo has rolled out a restaurant Quick App, part of a larger program of making more structured content and transactional capabilities available in SERPs. Examples of Quick Apps are reflected in the screenshot below: Netflix, OpenTable and Sketch-a-search. These "apps" allow users to do a number of things from within the search results. For example, Sketch-a-search allows users to launch a window and search for restaurants by drawing a custom geographic area on a map. The Restaurant Comparison Quick App builds a grid display of similar restaurants (or geographically relevant [...]

Related Topics: Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search

Yahoo is making a big push today for its new local search (edit: see below) interface, which offers a somewhat dramatic change both in the content it includes and how it's presented. Greg Sterling actually covered most of this a couple weeks ago here on SEL, but here's a quick recap: The new desktop beta offers a stream-like display of local news, deals, events, and other content that comes from Yahoo editors, local websites and blogs, and community members contributing directly to Yahoo Local. A lot of that content is new to Yahoo Local; some of it expands on Yahoo's recent focus on De [...]

Related Topics: Top News | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: User Interface

Most businesses tend to focus on the big channels when it comes to local SEO efforts. While it makes sense to optimize your Google Place Page and pay attention to your presence on other big local search services (e.g. Bing Local, CityGrid, DexKnows, Insider pages, Local.com, Merchant circle, Superpages, Yahoo Local, Yellow book, Yelp, YP.com, etc.), because of the fragmented nature of local search, there are plenty of other services that generate great local traffic and can provide you with SEO benefits. Here's a brief overview of some "off the grid" opportunities. Facebook Places. So Fa [...]

Related Topics: Foursquare | Google: Maps & Local | Gowalla | Local Search | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Search Engines: Location / Checkin Services | SEO: Local | SEO: Mobile Search | Twitter | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yelp