Local search keeps getting more competitive. Oodle.com has just announced it’ll be expanding its coverage to 23 additional markets, bring the total number of metro areas it serves up to 49, or over 50% of the US population.
Oodle’s search index now boasts over 4.5 million listings from an assortment of classified sources. There’s also an alerts feature which notifies users when their desired item becomes available.
So it would seem that the company is not being derailed by Craigslist’s recent decision to block Oodle from scraping its listings. Speaking of which, get Oodle’s take on the controversy in this posting on the Oodle blog.
Here’s a clip from what reads a little like a mea culpa:
“This whole Craigslist thing has unfortunately mushroomed into quite a big deal. They certainly have every right not to be in our index and I’m genuinely sorry that we appear to have upset them. We continue to be great fans.”
