Yext Heats Up Battle Against Google For Local Ad Dollars

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Remember when Google launched Tags, a local advertising up-sell aimed at local small businesses? Companies like Yelp and YellowPages certainly do, and they've joined a few other local directory sites in launching a competing product by the same name.

Techcrunch reports that about a dozen sites, all feeling the heat from Google's potentially disruptive move into local advertising, have teamed up with a startup called Yext to mount a defensive challenge against the search Titan with their own version of Tags.

On Monday, [Yext] will launch a new feature called "Tags" which will let small businesses highlight their names with a little tag and customizable message across about a dozen local listings sites. Launch partners for this "Tag Alliance" (I like my name better) will include MapQuest, Citysearch, Yellowbook, Local.com, SuperPages, White Pages, MerchantCircle, and Topix, with more to come.

In both incarnations, Tags is essentially a way for a business to mark their listings with a small, colored graphic so that it stands out in a larger directory or in search results. The tags can be appended with additional information, including promotions or mobile coupons.