• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, June 29, 2007

comScore recently released its qSearch Internet Yellow Page search rankings for Q1 2007, which revealed that Yellow Book Network was the fastest growing property with an 85-percent gain in searches over Q1 2006, while Yahoo! Sites was the market leader, accounting for 22.4 percent of IYP searches.

Growth in the overall IYPU.S. search market in Q1 2007 has been driven by the total number of unique IYP searchers growing by 21 percent.  However, the total number of IYP searches conducted rose by a modest 5-percent during that time-frame, indicating that lighter searchers have entered the market.

Nonetheless, Yellow Book Network and Yellowpages Network both realized increases of at least 80 percent in the number of search queries conducted.  The surge in search volume at Yellow Book Network, posits the report, can largely be attributed to a major national TV advertising campaign, as well as strategic partnerships. 

Yellowpages Network achieved growth primarily as the result of the inclusion of Switchboard.com traffic in December 2006 and did not contribute significantly to IYP search market growth.

 For the fifth consecutive quarter Yahoo! has led in IYP search share, accounting for 22.4 percent of IYP searches in Q1 2007.  Idearc Media ranked second, followed by Yellowpages Network, and Google Sites. Yellowpages Network posted the biggest share gain in Q1 2007, followed by Yellow Book Network. 

Idearc Media led the competition in IYP search engagement, as measured by both searches per searcher and result pages per searcher, driven primarily by activity on its Superpages.com site.  Yahoo! Sites ranked second in searches per searcher, followed by Yellowpages Network with.  In terms of search results pages per searcher, Yellowpages Network ranked second, while Yahoo! Sites rounded out the top three.

Read the complete release and access more details here.