Florist Directory Report – Effects of the Panda Update

From time to time we like to report on the various Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) directories and Florist-Specific Directories to determine which ones offer the most value to local florists. Our initial report was posted in 2009, and a subsequent comparison report arrived in 2010. More recently we ran our tests to examine the impact of the major update Google released in February targeting low quality web sites that contain duplicated or useless content, and then again this week following Google’s latest publicized tweak.

As we’ve seen over the past few years, Google appears to be devaluing directories that offer little more than easily repeated business information.

So, on to the results – this time arbitrarily categorized based on their track record.

After experiencing a brief surge with the February update, Teleflora’s Find-a-Florist site seems to be settling back into place.

	Aug-09	Oct-10	Feb-11	Apr-11	Change
Find A Florist	597	606	1626	662	-964

 

In the “Thud” category, Locate A Flower Shop may have already had their “last LAFS”

	Aug-09	Oct-10	Feb-11	Apr-11	Change
Locate A Flower Shop	1325	529	596	12	-584

 

FSN and Superpages headline our list of sites in a Steady Decline.

	Aug-09	Oct-10	Feb-11	Apr-11	Change
Superpages	634	134	177	67	-110
Flower Shop Network	232	229	152	52	-100
Yellow Pages	4	335	269	200	-69
Yahoo! Local	230	37	133	83	-50
Insider Pages	150	21	21	0	-21
Local Flower Shop	57	27	41	39	-2
Area Connect	114	97	56	55	-1

 

For the sake of consistency, we’ve included this other sites in the report, though they continue to be Non-Factors.

	Aug-09	Oct-10	Feb-11	Apr-11	Change
Magic Yellow	0	0	1	0	-1
iLocal Florist	0	19	0	33	33
FloristDEX	0	0	0	0	0
Direct 2 Florist	0	0	0	0	0
BizJournals	19	0	0	0	0
Switchboard	0	0	0	0	0
Local Florist	0	5	2	4	2

 

Finally, our Rising Stars! Yelp seems to be striving to attain their former glory, while FTD is rising fast to challenge the tumbling TF directory.

	Aug-09	Oct-10	Feb-11	Apr-11	Change
Citysearch	692	550	200	370	170
Yelp	1171	276	662	1150	488
FTD Florists Online	170	49	0	580	580