While at the Kelsey Local Search Conference last week I was talking to some folks from the local search group of one of the major search engines and they asked me if I knew any good sources of local content to add to their service.  They were already familiar with a lot of the sites we all know about.  They were looking for undiscovered gems.

If any of my readers feel you are an undiscovered gem, with an emphasis on the “gem” part, with a font of customer reviews, unique meta data, whatever,  feel free to drop me a line and I can probably hook you up.

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13 Response Comments

  • Jon  May 7, 2008 at 11:16 am

    I don’t think undiscovered gems will exist without the site being mainstream, which eventually became “discovered gem”. LOL

  • Andrew Shotland  May 7, 2008 at 12:01 pm

    Jon, your logic is in fact unassailable.

  • Gib Olander  May 7, 2008 at 1:48 pm

    Hey.. I know of a place with great local content!

  • Andrew Shotland  May 7, 2008 at 2:25 pm

    Sorry Gib. They told me only if the data included apostrophes 🙂

  • AhmedF  May 7, 2008 at 2:50 pm

    I do believe companies like Palore and MoonValley do a pretty good job with meta data without getting much attention anywhere.

    Not vouching for them explicitly, just that those are two that might be worth a looksy.

  • emad  May 7, 2008 at 4:33 pm

    how exactly would you define “undiscovered?” 🙂

  • Andrew Shotland  May 7, 2008 at 5:01 pm

    I guess the criteria is if you don’t see your information showing up in the local search results of one of the major se’s and appended to biz listings then that could be it.

  • Steve Espinosa  May 7, 2008 at 7:49 pm

    how much they willing to pay?

  • Frank  May 8, 2008 at 10:15 am

    Are they looking for reviews and ratings or just listings of places?

    We used Google Base data to load about 80K+ ratings (and theres still more out there). Of course Yahoo also provides web services for finding local places.

    We are thinking about making our ratings and even more importantly our correlations available via web services. If they are interested in that they can contact me. (See contact info if there interested).

  • Rick  May 9, 2008 at 8:24 am

    This is the problem with the top-down national local search sites, they do NOT, and will NEVER, have rich, truly local content.

    Sure, you can develop some great algorithm for your spiders to gather local content, but their reach is only so far…

    Without truly being at the hyper local level, brick and mortar, feet on the street if you will, you will never be able to develop the depth and accuracy of content at the local level to be sustainable.

    Why would we ever provide content to these “top down local search” providers and undermine our clear competitive advantage over them???

  • David Saunders  May 9, 2008 at 8:38 am

    Disagree big time with Rick……

    Local is deep – and deeper…….

    Top down should work as in Google Local, Yahoo Local, Insider Pages et al

    I do local and will not venture off that path

    David

  • Rick  May 9, 2008 at 12:02 pm

    We are also in the local arena and cannot agree more that local is “deep – and deeper…”, that is exactly my point!!!

    If the top down approach is working, why would the major search engines be looking to find these “hidden gems”?

    It’s simple, they cannot develop the depth of content needed for the local level, and I’m not talking about public information like business listings…

    IMHO, what we have is one of these “hidden gems” that the SE’s are looking for.

    The SE’s might provide the pipeline to local, but we deliver the water to the homes…

  • Mike Jacobs  May 9, 2008 at 1:39 pm

    Getting true local flavor is not easy.
    Content like that, I don’t mean just data, but wisdom and insights about local people, places, things, and business is a gem.
    Their interest in this kind of content is a positive.