• by Gavin O'Malley , June 8, 2005

America Online and YellowPages.com are expected today to announce an initiative to include on AOL Yellow Pages the tens of thousands of local and national advertisers with an existing presence on YellowPages.com, SBC SMARTpages.com, and BellSouth RealPages.com. YellowPages.com--a joint venture between SBC Yellow Pages and BellSouth Advertising and Publishing Corporation--will have advertiser listings integrated, hosted, and displayed within the AOL Yellow Pages service.

The agreement will extend YellowPages.com's reach and thus add value to their advertiser base, and will provide AOL Yellow Pages with improved ad content, according to Jim Riesenbach, senior vice president of AOL Search and Directional Media Group.

"By leveraging the high-quality assets of YellowPages.com, we can improve AOL Yellow Pages that's available across the AOL Network, as well as better meet the needs of online consumers searching for local resources," Riesenbach said.

Charles Stubbs, president and CEO of YellowPages.com, said existing advertisers will be included in the new extended network at their existing rates, but added that those rates could change over time with growth. "All of our advertisers will be included at the same rates, but over time as traffic and usage increases that could have an impact on rates," said Stubbs.

Stubbs, eager to focus on the present development, added: "Our advertisers, with a single buy, will now be in front of millions of consumers through the fastest-growing Internet Yellow Pages distribution network in the industry."

The overreaching goal for AOL and YellowPages.com is to encourage more of the nearly 13 million businesses throughout the country to advertise and invest online. "Even though only a fraction of those 13 businesses advertise online currently, these sorts of partnerships will prove to more and more local businesses and nationals looking for a local reach just how important the Internet is," Riesenbach said.