Search Engines Classifieds
Posted on | May 25, 2009 | No Comments
The “Next Big Thing” Has Already Arrived
If you sell anything, whether it be a product or service or your child’s outgrown clothes, your advertising/marketing playground have changed dramatically with the arrival of online classifieds search engines.
Online classifieds specialize in hosting classified ads, mostly for free. And they are not only striking fear into the hearts of traditional newspaper ad sellers, but they are opening up a whole new arena for online advertisers.
The trend actually started years ago with the advent of single-category classifieds like Monster.com and Yahoo’s HotJobs, and sites that specialize in cars or real estate. Then the hugely popular Craigslist.com arrived, which lists all categories of products and services much like the classified pages of a newspaper with the added bonus of being able to specify geographic regions around the world.
The limitation with most of these business models is that their internal search engines only access their own database. Folks began asking, “why don’t search engines seek out and index classifieds from all over the place to provide a more comprehensive classifieds listing?” And that’s what’s happening now.
Search Engines Classifieds You Should Know About
Oodle.com – The Search Engine for Local Classifieds
Launched in March 2005, Oodle is an aggregator and search engine that gets its listings from various sources: local newspapers, Craigslist.com, eBay, and vertical classifieds sites like Monster.com and Cars.com.
Oodle allows users to specify a local area in which to focus their search and select super-narrow categories where they can find exactly the color, type, size, breed, etc. of the item they seek.
For now, Oodle plans to generate revenue from advertising, so their classifieds are free.
Kijiji.com – free local Classifieds Ads
This is eBay’s foray into the online classifieds scene. The site explains: “The word “Kijiji” means “village” in Swahili. Our members come to our community to find a home, get a job, share their interests with friends, invite the public to an event, find an item they were looking for, or even to offer a gift.”
Postings on Kijiji are free and categorized geographically so this service is of particular value to local advertisers and shoppers.
Yahoo! Classifieds – Search Classifieds Ads
Yahoo’s listing offers both free and paid ads… the paid classifieds run longer, include more photos, and get priority listing in search results. Categories include everything from cars to pets to real estate to personals but so far the listings seem to be limited to the US.
Google Base – Help the World Find Your Content
This new venture is still in beta testing phase, but everything appears to be working. Users can upload free ads which are stored and made available to searchers. Although you won’t find the words “classified ads” being splashed around the site, they will inevitably dominate Google Base’s content.
Keywords are extremely important in this model. Google Base uses what it calls labels and attributes to facilitate searches, saying “Labels are any keywords or phrases – such as recipe, event, or product – that can be used to classify or describe your item. Attributes are words or phrases that help describe the characteristics and qualities of your items.”
For example, if you search on “bengal cats”, the results are based on those keywords, and are formatted much like the results in the main Google search engine with a title, description, and link to the source site.
Struggling Newspapers Move Classifieds Ads Online
Print publications are already feeling the pinch as online classified ads take a big bite out of their advertising revenues. In fact, a study by McKinsey & Co. predicts that by 2007, newspapers could lose $4 billion in classified revenue all because of Internet listings.
That scenario lead the entrepreneurs at LiveDeal – Online local free classifieds – to develop a program called AdShare, which is now being marketed to newspapers. It allows publishers to upload their ads to their own classifieds websites and presumably compete with existing ad sites by offering their customers an online/offline solution. And while all that is going on, Google is busy making deals with newspapers to publish Google ads in their printed pages!
All of these developments point in one direction: classifieds search engines are going to become an even larger factor in marketing and sales. And those marketers and business owners who know how to use, target and optimize their classified ads will reap the greatest benefits.
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