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New Enhancements on YellowPages.ca

Six new and improved search features on Canada’s most popular online directory YellowPages.ca have improved the search functionality so that users can find what they are looking for with even greater speed and ease. These new search features are key elements within a continuing goal to increase user traffic to your advertising on the Yellow Pages Group Web sites, maintain their leadership position in the local search and advertising business and enhance our efforts towards convergence with other search engines.

BROWSE BY CATEGORY

This new feature appears right on the home page of YellowPages.ca. In the “Browse by Category” box, Yellow Pages headings are classified into primary and secondary categories, allowing an intuitive drill-down approach when the user searches for a business. Most Yellow Pages headings are now available through the Browse by Category box.

PROXIMITY SEARCH (DISTANCE SEARCH)

The new Proximity Search feature lets our Web site visitors calculate the distance between a business and a specific location such as an address, a postal code or simply a street name. The user can then see a page of search results with business listings ranked by distance from the original specific location (closest to farthest, up to 200km). For example, the user can look for all the furniture stores that are located within five kilometers of his or her home. On the search results page, the user can change (increase or decrease) the search radius, so there is no need to start all over in order to change the search radius.

As a convenience and time-saver, our Web site visitors can permanently save up to three locations – “Home”, “Work” and “Other”. This lets the Web site visitor use these same locations every time to want to do a search by proximity.

WHAT’S CLOSE BY?

The What’s Close By? feature lets users do a distance search by category from within a business listing. This means that once a user has found the business listing they were looking for, they can click on the What’s Close By? icon and find other types of businesses close by. These businesses are listed by category, such as Apparel & Accessories, Travel, etc.

IMPROVED MAPS

Already a popular feature with YellowPages.ca users, our free Map service has been enhanced so that users can quickly create and print the most suitable map for their needs. Our new Map service is now powered by MaptuitTM and it features several improvements. First, it is no longer necessary to download a new page every time the user wants to zoom in or out: only the map image is refreshed, not the entire Web page.

In addition, when the user pauses their mouse pointer anywhere on the map, they will see a small pop-up text box with the street address, city and province of the location directly underneath their mouse pointer. Furthermore, in a text area just below the map, the user will see an estimated distance between the mouse pointer’s location and the cross-hairs on the map.

Another new feature called the “rubber band” lets the user zoom into a specific area that they define by clicking and dragging their mouse over the area to create a square border. When the user takes their finger off the mouse, the map image zooms in to the defined area.

And finally, if the user wants to go back to the previous version of the map, they can simply click the Undo / Redo button at the bottom of the map.

BREAD CRUMBS (SEARCH TRAIL)

The “bread crumbs” feature lets our Web site visitors see a visual record of their progress throughout a search. Using this feature, the site visitor can quickly and easily return to previous steps without having to press the “Back” key over and over.