Yell teams up with thomasglobal to extend search out of UK

Yell.com, the UK-based search engine, has signed a deal with US business-to-business (B2B) sourcing company Thomasglobal.com to provide search results in foreign markets for the first time.

Yell.com has traditionally focused on consumer search information, but the agreement will allow companies to make commercial searches on a co-branded part of the site across the UK and Europe, North and South America, and Asia.

The deal could eventually lead to the extension of Yell.com consumer searches in international markets.

Eddie Cheng, president of Yell.com, says: "Our collaboration with Thomasglobal.com is a significant development, increasing the depth of our B2B search facility and extending Yell.com worldwide.

"This move reflects the developing online search environment and will enhance our industrial search requests service, which is generally less location-specific than our traditional, UK-based search traffic."

Parent directory company Yell last week announced the appointment of former Lloyds TSB group marketing director Helen Stevenson as chief marketing officer, as first revealed on MarketingWeek.co.uk. Stevenson replaces Ann Francke, who left Yell abruptly earlier this year (MW July 20). A pitch for the Yell advertising business, previously held by Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO, is yet to be officially concluded.