Strategic partnerships between companies seem to be paying for the Internet Yellow Pages (IYP), as proven by the significant and noteworthy increases in seach traffic throughout the nation. This was the result of a recently concluded study by research firm ComScore, DMNews.com reported at the end of last month.

According to ComScore, Yellowpages.com Network forged a mutually beneficial alliance with Areaguides.net and 411.com, and saw its IYP search market share grow from 14.7% to 20.2% from Q4 2006 to Q4 of 2007. As a result of this growth, Yellowpages.com is now the market leader (it has overtaken Superpages.com by a narrow margin) in the IYP search space.

In 2007, Superpages.com also established a new partnership with Local.com and acquired Infospace FindIt/Switchboard.com, but also discontinued its relationships with 411.com and MSN Yellowpages. According to ComScore, Superpages.com’s market share dropped from 20.9% to 20.0% from Q4 2006 to Q4 2007.

Similarly, Yellow Book and R.H. Donnelley saw traffic more than double from December 2006 to December 2007, the report added. Part of this growth may be attributed to Yellow Book’s partnerships with Infospace and Addresses.com and R.H. Donnelly’s acquisition of Business.com.

During the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York City last March, a panel consisting of representatives from various local search companies stressed the importance of partnerships in an area where there is no clear market leader.

According to Justin Sanger, founder and president of LocalLaunch (a local search engine marketing and search optimization firm owned by R.H. Donnelly), content is absolutely critical in the local search world, he stressed. As a result, local search companies have had to embrace and work harmoniously with those that have historically been their competitors.

We can’t build walls around our inventory, Sanger said. Distribution is critical. Nobody’s the gorilla in this market, said Bruce Crair, COO of Local.com, who also spoke at the Search Engine Strategies panel. The more we network with our cooperation partners  the better off the advertiser and consumer is.