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Greg R. Notess
Reference Librarian
Montana State University

ON THE NET

Duplicative Databases: Yellow Pages from infoUSA

DATABASE, February 1999
Copyright © Online Inc.





Lately, the Web has seen increasing numbers of databases made available through Web interfaces. These databases, and especially at the Web search engine and portal sites, have become the important content offered to entice more visits by Web wanderers. A database of Web pages or even a directory is no longer enough. The portals are busy adding many other searchable databases. One of the standard offerings is a database of phone numbers, usually offered with separate searches for individual listings (white pages) and business entries (yellow pages).

As the Web search engine companies have broadened into portals, the creation of partnerships with existing Web-based database search services has been quite active. The portals now offer many searchable databases of their own creation, from their business partners, and from subsidiaries they have bought out. But do not assume that Company A has only partnered with Portal B. Company A may well have partner agreements with several portals. On top of that multiple partnering, competing companies may be offering a different interface to the same underlying database. Rather than being an example of duplicitous database design, these are merely the product of multiple business deals resulting in near-duplicative databases. Most obvious of all the partners, infoUSA provides the phone number databases behind most of the U.S. yellow and white page services on the Net.

INFOUSA

InfoUSA (the company formerly known as American Business Information, Inc.) produces the American Business Directory database and print editions of U.S. State business directories. InfoUSA sells access to its databases through a variety of online service including Dialog, LEXIS-NEXIS, and CompuServe. Their own Web site (http://www.infousa.com/ or http://www.abii.com/) offers free access to a portion of their database. For a more detailed comparison of these different levels of access on the commercial side, see Mary Ellen Bates' article "American Business Information: Here, There, and Everywhere" (DATABASE, April-May 1997) and Michael Lavin's article "A Clash of Titans: Comparing America's Most Comprehensive Business Directories" (DATABASE, June-July 1998).

Indeed, it is not only everywhere on the commercial side, but everywhere on the Web as well. Beyond even their own Web site, the infoUSA database underlies most free phone number directories on the Web for both business and residential phone numbers. Sometimes infoUSA or American Business Information is cited as the source while in other instances the source credit is deeply buried or not displayed at all. These are the popular phone number databases directly accessible from many partners, portals, and intermediaries.

YELLOW PAGES

The lookup services for the many business phone number and address resources at Yahoo!, AltaVista, Switchboard, Zip2, Excite, Lycos, Infoseek, Microsoft, BigBook, and GTE Superpages rely primarily on data from an infoUSA database. Try the AltaVista yellow page service under Specialty Searches. AltaVista has a partner arrangement with Switchboard. The search page includes the phrase "powered by Switchboard," but that does not mean the data originates with Switchboard. A look at the fine print at the bottom of the pages finds the phrase, "Business and Residential Information provided by American Business Information." Note that the credit still uses the older name for infoUSA.

Choosing the Yellow Pages link on Excite brings up a partner page from Zip2. The page is titled Excite Yellow Pages and the Zip2 logo figures prominently near the top and at the bottom. Yet once again, the actual data comes from infoUSA. This credit only appears in the fine print, but not on the initial search screen. Instead, it appears on the bottom of the search results page.

Lycos relies on the GTE Superpages which, given the GTE phone directory connection might imply an original database. But once again, after delving down to an actual search results page either directly with the GTE Superpages or via Lycos, the fine print gives the usual "Business Information provided by American Business Information." Yahoo!'s yellow pages, once known as Four11, do the same.

Starting to see a trend here? Even Netscape follows suit. Netscape's yellow pages are available through a partner arrangement with InfoSpace. And who supplies the data to InfoSpace? InfoUSA, of course. Not to be outdone, the Microsoft Network (MSN) also has a yellow pages database. Infoseek's yellow pages link also connects to the Microsoft yellow pages. And while Microsoft hits may not display for people using Netscape's Web browser, the underlying data comes from...?

Answering this question gets a bit more complex and requires some digging into the database and accompanying help files. At first it appears to be a different database from the others since it can retrieve unique results not found by other infoUSA databases with a similar search. No data source is listed in any fine print. So is it a unique database?

MICROSOFT'S SIDEWALK YELLOW PAGES

Microsoft locates their yellow page database in their Sidewalk portion of MSN. To find the source for its data requires delving into the Sidewalk frequently asked questions file (see http://national.sidewalk.msn.com/Link/4472 until Microsoft restructures that particular FAQ). There you can find the statement: "most of our Yellow Pages information comes from a third-party data provider, InfoUSA." So despite initial appearances, it still uses the same underlying database. The FAQ also notes that updates sent to infoUSA may take "several months to appear on Sidewalk," which says something about the MSN yellow pages update frequency.

The Microsoft story underscores an important aspect of the duplicative databases for basic business information- the various services do not all have exact duplicates of the database. In some cases, they add addresses and phone numbers from other sources. These additional entries could originate from other databases or from user submissions. Other discrepancies between the various sources for free Web access to the infoUSA databases could be due to differences in database update frequency.

SEARCH FEATURES

Even when relying on an essentially identical database, the many front end interfaces to infoUSA offer a wide variation in search features. None offer the full database content and advanced search features available from the American Business Directory database on a commercial system like Dialog. Data on employee size, sales volume, key executives, lines of business, and credit codes may be available on the Web from these services, but only for those willing to pay. The free services basically offer address, phone numbers, and yellow page category information. But it is helpful to know which offer reverse phone number lookup capabilities or searching more than one state at a time.

The most simple and least powerful interface can be seen on the Yahoo! Yellow Pages. To even begin a search, Yahoo! forces the user to first choose a location, as in a city and state, before allowing browsing by categories. No name search is available. For certain basic functions, it works well, but more sophisticated searches require more advanced services.

The next step up is demonstrated at Zip2, the service used by Excite. Zip2 allows searching by category as well as by business name. While this is a step in the right direction, it still limits searching to one state at a time.

To go beyond one state at a time, try Switchboard, either direct or via its partner AltaVista. While Switchboard can only search one state at a time for a category search, a business name can be searched without specifying a state. This will search nationwide and as a keyword search. Unfortunately, it is either search one state or all states. There is no option to search several states at once.

REVERSE LOOKUP

GTE Superpages, used by Lycos, is similar to Switchboard in that it can search nationwide for business names, although on the down side, if too many hits are found on the keyword, it will only respond with an error message. More important, Superpages add another very useful capability: reverse lookup. This search by phone number is available under Detailed Search. In the Superpages implementation of the reverse lookup, a search can be run with a full phone number or without an area code, prefix, or last four digits. However, each of these segments (area code, prefix, or last four digits) must be complete. A search can be run on 123-456-???? or ???-456-7890, but not on 123-456-78??.

For the latter, another reverse lookup service (still relying on the underlying infoUSA database) needs to be used. InfoSpace, also available as the Netscape Yellow Pages, has a wide variety of reverse searches. It has separate entry lines for business phone numbers, residential phone numbers, business fax, and toll-free numbers. Unlike GTE Superpages, an area code is required. However, the number can be truncated at the end.

On the same InfoSpace reverse lookup page is a reverse address lookup. This is for residential addresses. While it can be used in a similar fashion to a city directory, it cannot be browsed as easily. Leaving off the house number retrieves a list of all the entries on a particular street, but they are sorted alphabetically by name rather than in street order.

UNDERLYING DATA

While infoUSA compiles their database from print directories, it is important to note that this is not the phone companies' database. While close, it is not an exact match for the numbers available from information or a local phone directory. According to their own documentation, their sources include more than 5,000 Yellow Page directories and hundreds of Business White Pages. In addition, they draw upon annual reports, SEC filings, government data, business magazines, newsletters, and major newspapers. Data is manually input and verified by phone.

While these sources are used to create the basic infoUSA database, remember that each of the individual services may add their own information to their version of the database. Additional sources could be the service's own list of users or other purchased lists. The frequency and timing of updates to the underlying infoUSA database may vary between services. Thus, although the many infoUSA databases are quite duplicative in general, small sections of the databases may differ between the various free phone number services.

ALTERNATIVE DATABASES

So are there any nationwide alternatives to infoUSA? All the best search features, reverse lookups, and other bells and whistles will not help when the database fails to contain specific entries. What option is there beyond the infoUSA omnipresent database? Finally, a free Web alternative is at hand. This past July, the Baby Bell phone companies finally got together to create their own national yellow page database, based on the actual yellow pages. Their Web product is known as At Hand (http://www.athand.com) and only covers yellow page entries, not white page listings of individuals.

At Hand is the exception to the infoUSA derivatives. The At Hand database is available directly or via its partners: HotBot, GeoCities, Mining Company, LookSmart, and MetaCrawler, among others. For its content, At Hand relies on databases from several of the Baby Bells: Ameritech, Bell South, Pacific Bell, Southwestern Bell, Nevada Bell, and US West. While these are not all of the Baby Bells, the At Hand database does cover the entire U.S.

Here at last is a non-duplicative database. While much of the content does overlaps with the infoUSA database, At Hand can deliver entries and phone numbers not available in the others. In several comparisons, it more closely matched the records in a printed directory than infoUSA hits. Most important, it successfully finds some companies that are not included in infoUSA.

At Hand does have limitations. It is only a yellow pages database, although some of its component companies such as US West offer white page databases. Its searches are more limited than some of the others mentioned above. Access is only by business name or category. Only a single state at a time can be searched, and a city must be designated as well.

For more advanced searching of the At Hand database, try the Web sites of their component Bell companies. For example, the US West service, known as US West Dex, also covers the entire country. As opposed to At Hand, it can search across a single state without specifying a city. In addition, it offers a reverse phone number lookup. Like InfoSpace, it requires an area code, but the right several digits of the number can be left off to achieve right-hand truncation.

A COMMERCIAL OPTION

For even more sophisticated searching and a database that claims to be the most up-to-date phone number database on the Web, see DirectoryNET's InfoNOW. Covering residential, business, and government phone numbers, InfoNOW is a commercial service. Providing access to the same database used by directory assistance, this live access connects to a database that is updated daily.

At $9.90 a month, InfoNOW will probably only be of interest to those with frequent needs for searching this database. The monthly fee includes 22 searches. Further searches cost an additional $.45 per search. InfoNOW's coverage is limited to just the 48 contiguous U.S. states. It offers reverse lookup by phone number, but only for 28 states.

WHITE PAGE DATABASES

The focus of this article has been the business phone directories. But what about the many residential phone number databases that cover the U.S.? The pattern is very similar. AltaVista, for example, uses Switchboard which gets its database from infoUSA. HotBot uses BigYellow. BigYellow is powered by Switchboard, so we are back to infoUSA again. Both Netscape and Lycos use InfoSpace (yet another infoUSA-based service). InfoSpace's reverse lookup page works for both residential and business numbers.

Unfortunately, finding an alternative to infoUSA-based residential listings can be more difficult. At Hand only covers business, at least at this point. DirectoryNET's InfoNOW covers residential listings, but may be too expensive for the casual user. US West Dex has a nationwide white page service, but despite the lack of credit given to infoUSA, the results look quite similar and may well derive from the same infoUSA residential database rather than from phone company records.

Given the rapidly changing information landscape of the Web, it is important to constantly check the fine print on Web sites. While infoUSA is currently the source for the vast majority of U.S. phone number databases on the Web, new partnerships and buyouts can potentially change that and change it quickly. Be sure to pay attention to any statements related to the source of data and not just to service names. Just as Yahoo! switched from AltaVista to Inktomi as its search engine and Web page database this past summer, other services may switch to and from infoUSA just as quickly.


Selected Yellow Pages Services

The Source
infoUSA
http://www.infousa.com
Nationwide Name Searches
Switchboard
GTE Superpages
http://www.switchboard.com
http://yp.superpages.com/ypform.phtml
Reverse Lookup
GTE Superpages
InfoSpace
US West Dex
http://yp.superpages.com/ypform.phtml
http://www.infospace.com/reverse.htm
http://uswestdex.com/cgi/search.fcg?form=AdvSearchAt Hand
The Alternatives
At Hand
US West Dex
InfoNOW
http://www.athand.com
http://uswestdex.com
http://directorynet.com/infonow


Communications to the author should be addressed to Greg R. Notess, Montana State University Libraries, Bozeman, MT 59717-0332; 406/994-6563; greg@notess.com or http://www.notess.com.

Copyright © 1999, Online Inc. All rights reserved.