Google UK's Second Local Deal

First Google and Yell announced that the latter, the owner of the Yellow Pages brand in the U.K., would provide the content for Google Local U.K. Now Yell's rival in the directory publishing business, Thomson Directories, has announced that it will effectively be a sales agent for Google, selling local advertisers into Google's ad network.

The move is very similar to what American directory publishers BellSouth, Dex and SBC are doing in selling local advertisers access to search engine traffic in the U.S.

ThomsonLocal.com and Thomson-owned pay-per-click marketing site WebFinder.com will sell into and supply local U.K. advertisers to Google.

Thomson's advertisers will gain access to distribution through Google, AOL, Ask Jeeves and Virgin.net, which are all part of Google's U.K. AdWords network.

Thomson Directories is owned by Italian directory publisher SEAT Pagine Gialle and has an existing relationship with Yahoo! that provides U.K. local data to Yahoo! UK Web sites.