e-Newsletter June 2009

"Why do listings for tree services display in the business directory results when I search for pizza?"

That's a great question. It's also the type of question we regularly receive at Planet Discover. Let's take a look at what happens behind the curtain and explore the complex sequence of events that occur when a keyword search is conducted in the Planet Discover Local Directory product.

Each keyword search starts by trying to match the search term to entries in the synonym database. Synonym matches are appended to the keyword term with an "OR" operation. For example, the synonym database equates "fitness center" with "gym." The resulting search term based on this synonym match would be "(fitness AND center) OR (gym)."

After keywords are adjusted to include synonyms, parameters such as category match or distance, are applied to the search results. These parameters can be applied within the Search Publisher interface, the Planet Discover proprietary search platform.

Stemming – the process of breaking keywords down into separate core words – is also applied to the search term. This allows Search Publisher to match plural, and in some cases, more complex search terms. Stemming the fitness center example may result in a search term of "FIT AND center". This is important to note because different words may consist of the same core word leading to unexpected results such as "pipe FITters" for a "FITness center" search.

Next, Search Publisher applies boosting parameters that have been established within a particular instance of the software. Boosting is a mechanism that weights specific listing fields in the search index. For example, the title field for business listings may be weighted higher than the description field or associated categories in determining a listing's relevancy to the search term. Boost is a configurable parameter in Search Publisher. Your client services team is always available to help fine-tune boosting to achieve desired results.

Finally, sorting is applied to the search results. Relevancy is the default sort parameter in the Planet Discover business directory. The Search Publisher search algorithm calculates a score based on the number of times a search term appears in the queried data to determine the relevance of listings to the keyword search term. As a result, the most relevant listings sort to the top of the results. Results can also be sorted by distance, alphabetical or most reviewed. Keep in mind that applying the additional sort orders can results in the desired results – most relevant – displaying deeper in the search results. For this reason, Planet Discover recommends implementing relevancy as the default and allowing users to apply additional sort options within the search interface on your site.

Why did my search for "fitness" give me a toy store?
This is related to the stemming example provided above – the stem for "fitness" is "fit." The stemming in this case may match the name of a local toy retailer.

There are other potential explanations for these types of results. The most common is including the miscellaneous field in the search algorithm. The miscellaneous field consolidates fields such as address and contact name which could result in matches of the keyword stem. Reducing the likelihood of these types of results requires careful planning with regard to which fields, and associated boosting, to include in the search index.

When I search for "restaurants" I don't see Chili's
Planet Discover receives business listings from a national directory data provider. Overall, the data Planet Discover receives includes listings for the majority of business in a local market. However, it is possible that a local business may not be included. There are typically two possible explanations for a local business not displaying in search results: a business that is new to the area or a business that has changed physical locations. In most cases, these scenarios are remedied when Planet Discover receives and implements monthly updates from our data provider. In cases where monthly updates don't add these businesses in the most recent data update, it may be necessary to add them directly to the database through the Search Publisher administrative interface.

As you can see, there are several complex processes in Search Publisher to determine relevant business listings – as well as the corresponding sort order – and how they display in search results. It often takes a collaborative effort between Planet Discover and our clients to adjust search parameters to achieve optimal results.

As always, our goal at Planet Discover is to help you establish your search as the preferred source for local information. Please contact your Client Services team directly or email support@planetdiscover.com if you have questions about the business directory results on your site.

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Planet Discover is committed to helping our clients' position and promote their site search and related functionality as the preferred source for everything local. One of the key benefits of LaunchPad, the Planet Discover client support site, is the wealth of resources available for optimizing your local search success.

LaunchPad has been updated with new features and resources to help you promote the value of local search and drive corresponding revenue.

Spreading the word about local search
The Planet Discover Market Development group works closely with our clients to train local sales teams and develop strategies to promote local search. Through these activities, Market Development Managers have gathered best practices for local search. These best practices have been added to the Market Development area of LaunchPad to help you achieve your local search objectives.

Updated tools have been added to three areas within LaunchPad: Advertising Solutions, Promotional Materials and Sales Resources.

Advertising Solutions – These resources are designed to help your local sales team gain a better understanding of the advertising products available to monetize local search. There is a high-level overview and a list of features and benefits for each advertising solution available in the Planet Discover offering. In addition, a slide show calls out the important features of each solution.

Promotional Materials – To realize the revenue potential of local search, it is necessary to generate traffic to your site and promote search advertising your advertisers. The online banner ad, bill stuffers and newspaper ads available on LaunchPad are updated regularly with fresh creative to help promote local search to your community and local advertisers.

Sales Resources – The market development efforts at Planet Discover are designed to help you develop a successful sales strategy for local search. The sample sales sheets, telemarketing scripts and FAQs available in this area provide the tools to effectively communicate the features and benefits of local search advertising. You also have access to real-world examples of how to motivate your sales force and host advertiser sessions that produce results.

Some things remain the same – yet still effective
LaunchPad is designed as a collaboration tool that allows our clients to engage our support team, review the status of projects and submit and track work requests. These features and tools still exist in LaunchPad. For example, Planet Discover interacts with our clients throughout the course of a project by uploading project documentation into LaunchPad.

At Planet Discover, we are committed to helping our clients exceed their local search objectives. LaunchPad, provides the resources to help you achieve those results. To access LaunchPad, go to:

Then login with your Planet Discover username and password.

To learn more about how LaunchPad can help you, contact your Client Services team or send an email to support@planetdiscover.com.

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Objective: Create an entertainment site for the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area

Planet Discover has a long-standing relationship with the McClatchy Company. When it was time for the McClatchy property in Fort Worth to bring their strategic vision for a local entertainment portal to life, they contacted Planet Discover.

The strategy calls for www.dfw.com to be the premier destination for local entertainment in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Fort Worth wanted the site to include editorial pages for dining, music, events, nightlife and the arts – any activity visitors to the Metroplex would be looking for, all powered by the Planet Discover search and events systems.

Fort Worth approached Planet Discover about including our local search and related applications to create a more robust user experience for all site visitors. Based on functional mock-ups provided by our contacts in Fort Worth, Planet Discover implemented an integrated search with content modules that deliver entertainment results:

• The Planet Discover local business directory provides search results for Dining and Nightlife. Enhanced business listings within the directory provide our client with the opportunity to monetize the search.
• Search results for Movies are provided by the Planet Discover movies application.
• Music, Events and Arts results are provided by the Planet Discover events system.

In addition to the integrated search, Planet Discover created a search widget that Fort Worth can place on their hosted pages. This is a tabbed widget that allows site visitors to search for dining, nightlife, events/concerts and movies content.

Finally, the Planet Discover ad system was integrated to display graphic ad links on search results pages. Fort Worth provides term-based keyword ads for advertisers to secure a presence on results pages based on the search term entered by a site visitor.

The Planet Discover Client Services and Web Development teams worked very closely with our contacts in Fort Worth to ensure their objectives for the site were achieved. The steady growth in activity the site has experienced since its initial launch is an indication of the successful outcome of this project.

"The growth of DFW.com has been constant. Monthly unique visitors have increased from 21,117 to 127,758 and monthly page views have increased from 50,000 to 486,000 since the site launched in September 2008 through April 2009. We attribute this growth to the addition of features such as Party Pics and 1/2-off Restaurant Certificates as well as exposure from a free weekly print publication, DFW.com INK."

One of the primary objectives Fort Worth had for this site was to reach local visitors that don't read their newspaper or visit the newspaper Website. Based on the increased number of unique users, they are confident that this goal has been met. In addition, Fort Worth has been able to leverage the increased traffic to provide a compelling story to potential advertisers.

Through continued development and support Planet Discover is committed to helping our clients achieve their online objectives. Contact your Client Services team or email support@planetdiscover.com to discuss how Planet Discover search and content applications can contribute to the success of your online initiatives.

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