I stopped advertising with the Yellow Pages a few months ago.The reason being,is that nearly everyone is using Google to find goods and services on the net.

Sensis were reluctant to give me stats on the number of clicks on my website for their monthly fee.Upon analysis it was costing me via Yellow Pages Online $38.00 per click as opposed to Google's average of $1.00 per click on my website.

If Yellow Pages or Sensis is to continue to exist, they must take Google on at their own game.The following should be their strategy.

1/ Put out a DVD with all the info in the Yellow/White books that no one looks at anymore,so we can download them on our computers.When we download the info on their DVD,an icon will appear at the top of our browser as a reminder to use Yellow rather than Google.

2/Yellow Pages need to develop their own search engine independant of Google.They must get a more intimate knowledge of Aust businesses and their needs and match these with those of prospective customers.They can beat Google by providing a better service to both businesses and customers.

3/ Match Google with a cost per word but give a better service.

Marketing is as complex and variable as the whims of our society.It takes a lot of research to know what works.

Google's aim is to dominate the market and charge what they want.I don't want to see Yellow Pages (Sensis) enter oblivion since it will cost both business and the consumer much more if one player dominates.

I, for one, use yellow pages when I need a service, and as opposed to shmoogle that takes money for lost visitors that try to sort among myriad of irrelevant links, I don't browse yellow-pages because I'm bored, but because I really need something very specific, so when I look at the category I need, I WILL use the services of one of them.

Yuyutsu, Yellow pages have been used to be almost a monopoly power.They have been caught out by the power of Google.This is why they are spending so much money on advertising to stem the bleeding while they figure out a new strategy.

Dear Arjay,

I, as a consumer, use yellow-pages because it's the standard and proper way to seek a service.

If I want something, then I should be the one to initiate the search - anyone who throws an ad at me, is being immediately blacklisted!
(I did, however, install every possible piece of software to not see that disgusting stuff, including on this site)

Yellow pages provides an orderly, solid, Australian directory based on my location and the specific service that I need. Sometimes I use the physical yellow book and other times the online service, but in any case, I wouldn't go searching for a local service at an American site, how much more so a criminal company which systematically evades people's privacy by publishing aerial photos of their homes, streets and backyards.

The Stats are Yuyutsu that most people today are using Google to find a service or product and Google is cheaper that most competitors. Yellow Online is too expensive for the service they provide.

It is obviously commendable that you are standing firm against the tide of progress, Yuyutsu, but I suspect that King Canute would have a few words of advice for you on that subject.

But it is only fair to point out that you are looking through the opposite end of the telescope from Arjay, who is seeing the impact of the various internet search options from the perspective of a product provider.

>>I, as a consumer, use yellow-pages because it's the standard and proper way to seek a service.<<

Actually, it is neither "standard", nor "proper" any longer.

My company has been invisible to Yellow Pages for more than five years. And every time they try to solicit my business - usually close to the end of a quarter - I compare their offer to the mainstream search engines, and find it somewhat pathetic. As Arjay points out, they are ridiculously expensive, and can only justify this expense on the familiarity of their product to a certain section of the public.

What will eventually happen is that those businesses who still fork out for their service will realize that it is not actually reaching the 100% of the public that it used to, back in the days of plain old telephones and bulky telephone books. And the public will simultaneously discover that not all businesses can be found in there...

All good things come to an end at some point. Mostly when they become irrelevant.