WhitePages.com has released a new version of its Business Search today. It includes contact info for over 15 million local businesses around the U.S. as well as a Store Locator providing one-click access to neighborhood contact info for over a million local branches of national chains.
The angle WhitePages is taking is that it is replacing the need for search engines like Google and Bing for finding business contact info. I don’t know if that will translate into such actions by search engine users, but WhitePages certainly hopes people will see it that way.
"The frustrating days of scrolling through search engine results, clumsy store locators, or phone books for simple local business contact information officially comes to an end today with the launch of WhitePages Business Search," says Jason Milstead, director of WhitePages Business Search. "Web users that want to connect with websites should use Google or Bing. But if they simply want practical, easy to find contact information to connect with a local store of a business chain, doctor or dentist, WhitePages Business Search is the best resource."
"Every day WhitePages seeks new ways to make it easy for consumers to look up contact information for people and businesses online without surfing non-authoritative sites or dialing 411," said Alex Algard, founder and CEO of WhitePages. "The new WhitePages Business Search takes us one step closer to helping everyone quickly and efficiently connect with both people and local businesses."
Obviously Google and Bing are not going to lose too much sleep over this announcement, but WhitePages.com did have over 13 million unique visitors in May by Compete’s count.