Yellow Pages refer to a telephone directory of businesses, while white pages for non-commercial listings, detailed index of all the residential and business alphabetic phone books. The name and concept of "Yellow Pages" came about in 1883. Yellow Pages directories are usually published annually, and distributed for free to all residences and businesses within a given coverage area. The Yellow Pages is used globally, in both English-speaking and non-English speaking countries. The term Yellow Pages is not a registered name and is freely used by many companies. Local phone companies that publish yellow page directories rely on their own customer lists and include business listings that are provided by phone service providers. In Belgium, the Republic of Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, and Romania the 'Yellow Pages' are known as the Golden Pages and Sri Lanka the 'Yellow Pages' are known as the Rainbow Pages, or the silver page. Yellow Pages print usage is reported to be declining with both advertisers and shoppers increasingly turning to Internet search engines and online directories. |