Google, Telstra sign deal for Yellow Maps

Google and Telstra subsidiary Sensis has signed a deal to integrate the data from its Yellow Pages business listings into Google Maps Australia.

"We are looking to our relationship with Google to find as many customers as possible for the Yellow advertisers," Sensis CEO Bruce Akhurst said this morning of the deal.

"Today we have something like 11 million Australians every month using the Yellow Pages service about 150 million times a month," he said. "We have something like 600,000 small businesses [that] have advertised through Sensis."

Akhurst said this deal extended to all Yellow services. "If you advertise with Yellow Directory, Yellow Online, Yellow Mobile or our telephone service 1234 ... you will now be able to be found through the Google search engine and the Google distribution."

(Credit: Sensis)

When asked about Whereis.com, the Sensis business that competes directly with Google Maps, Akhurst said the business would continue in its current form.

"Whereis is a business that has sat alongside the Google Maps business for some time — we supply much of the location and navigation that goes into automobiles and the portable nav devices. That business will just continue," he said.

Google Australia's general manager Karim Temsamani said that the new data would increase the functionality of Maps, with an aim to drive more traffic to the service.

"When we launched Street View a few months ago, we saw a 5,000 per cent increase in the number of searches [for] Google Maps," Temsamani said. "[Yellow business listings] is not the only source of information you can find on Maps, but it is the most comprehensive source of data you can find on Australian businesses ... this will really improve the quality of our maps."

(Credit: Google)

Both Google and Sensis declined to supply the value of the deal or its duration. Temsamani said the Yellow business listings will be integrated into Google Maps from the first quarter of 2009.

Sensis recently clashed with the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission regarding misleading advertising on its subsidiary site, The Trading Post. Google also faced the ACCC in June.