The New York Tech Blog

Ever since Google launched its SME and startup oriented $100 million in AdWords credit program days before New Year’s Eve, listings businesses have been contemplating existential questions like “Do we face extinction?”

This week Yext has stepped in to rally the troops and directly challenge Google with its very own tags. Though Google has a similar product, Yext’s tags feature is supposed to stand out because it allows clients—small businesses—to update and monitor all their advertising data from a single and/or multiple interfaces.

So far Yext has welcomed MapQuest, Citysearch, Yellowbook, Local.com, SuperPages, White Pages, MerchantCircle, and Topix under its banner. This new mega-partnership should revitalize the threatened listings websites who would otherwise have been undermined by the big G’s latest AdWords foray.

Together with its partners, Yext is offering $99 per month for each business location and the ability to update profiles on its partner sites. This means what a business owner can do on Yext is also possible at SuperPages, et. al. Yext is also working on allowing users a broader range of tools so that client updates become universal among all partner sites.

Whether this will seriously blunt Google’s expansion in the AdWords realm still remains to be seen.

Via: TechCrunch