Yahoo Offers Free Web-Page Hosting For Small Businesses

Yahoo Inc. on Wednesday started offering web-page hosting at no charge for small businesses that want a presence beyond a simple listing in the portal's local search.

The Sunnyvale, Calif., company said it's testing the service as a way to add "depth and comprehensiveness" to Yahoo's local search. More than 50 percent of the more than 20 million small businesses in the U.S. do not have a website, according to Yahoo.

Local search holds strong ad-revenue potential for search engines, since many web surfers look for products and services near their home or in cities they're visiting. Besides Yahoo, rivals Google Inc., Microsoft Corp's MSN and America Online Inc. offer local search. AOL, for example, says 20 percent of all its online look-ups are for a product or service near a person's home.

Nevertheless, local search presents a challenge to providers, since it draws the most complaints from consumers, who often find that the results don't match their needs, according to web performance tracker Keynote Systems Inc.

Yahoo's latest service attempts to attack that problem by getting small businesses to help beef up listings. Yahoo provides what it says is a simple interface and template for creating a site, which is automatically integrated into the company's local-search service.

The hosting service complements Yahoo's offer of a basic business listing, similar to a Yellow-Page listing, at no charge. The listing can be edited by the business.

Yahoo also offers paid services for small businesses, including domain name, e-mail, enhanced web hosting and e-commerce.