UK company directories on the Web

Abstract

Reports results of a study, conducted by the Scottish Business Information Service (SCOTBIS), part of the National Library of Scotland, to evaluate the basic UK national company directories available via the Web. It aimed to evaluate and identify key Web sites that could be recommended, with some confidence, to SCOTBIS users; and to compare the retrieval rates for company information from such sites against some of SCOTBIS’ existing printed resources. A given list of UK companies, derived from current printed directories, was compared with similar Web directories to compare success rates in locating companies and to provide some basic evaluation of the content and nature of the selected Web resources. Key indicators were coverage and level of data provided and it was seen that the majority of sites cover approximately between 1.5 and two million companies. Each site also provides an address as well as a telephone number (Dun & Bradstreet being the sole exception to the latter). In terms of product information, most sites fall into the brief description category (a maximum of three or four words describing the activity of the company). Indication of size is also rare among these directories with only Dun & Bradstreet providing such data for an extensive range of companies. Concludes that Web directories can be quick and useful tools for searching for UK companies but there is some question over the long term viability of free sites and the poor comprehensiveness of Web directories compared with the printed resources.