Search Hints

Finding a UK business on ThomsonLocal.com.

The ThomsonLocal.com directory features over 2 million businesses, suppliers and organisations.

There are various ways you can search for the business you are looking for:

• Who or What – Fill in either a business type or a specific business name here e.g. Plumbers or Acme Plumbing Ltd
• Where - fill in the location here. This could be either a postcode or a town or area name e.g. Farnborough, GU14 or Hampshire

You must enter at least a business type or name. Leaving the location box blank will conduct a UK-wide search.

Entering a full postcode in 'Where', e.g. GU14 7NU, will search nearby that location, and produce results in distance order. The search nearby feature works for both business types and business names.

Refining the location searched.

We aim to produce a set of results that closely match your search every time but you may need to refine your search for greater accuracy. The results page includes a blue panel to the left of the screen which contains a number of tools to help you refine your search further.

For example, there may be more than one town with the same name. Results from the largest town will be returned but alternatives will be available in the left hand panel. You can also expand or reduce the area searched using the options provided.

A business that serves a wide area may appear in search results for a location even though they are not physically based there. You can filter your results to exclude businesses based outside the area using the left hand panel.

Reference is occasionally made to 'Thomson Local Areas'. These usually cover several towns and surrounding areas, reflecting local trading patterns. Each one covers the same area as its corresponding Thomson Local phone book.

Refining the type of business searched for.

ThomsonLocal.com contains over 2 million business listings. Our business listings are classified into various business types to help our users find what they are looking for. We aim to bring you a set of results even if your search doesn’t exactly match one of our classifications. In some instances there may be more than one similar or related classification. You can refine your search by selecting alternative classifications from the left hand panel.

Searching for a specific business.

If you know the name of the business you are looking for you can search for it by typing the name into the Who or What box. Adding a location will help narrow down the results that are returned.

Where we are unable to find an exact match to the businesses name we will try to find the closest partial match. If we cannot find any matches the site will assume you are looking for a business type and will return results from the closest matching classification. You can try an alternative spelling and opt to search for a business name using the options in the left hand panel.

Understanding your results.

ThomsonLocal.com aims to return a relevant set of results each time you search. In order to help you further refine the results you achieve we have provided a number of tools and additional features.

Finding your way around the results page

The ThomsonLocal.com results page is divided into three columns. The left column contains tools to help you refine your search, the central column displays your search results and the right hand column contains additional useful features such as mapping and sponsored results that match the keywords you have used to search.

Sorting results

Results are displayed in pages of 20 listings. You can click through to additional pages or sort your results using the tabs at the top of the page.

Results can be sorted by the following

• Alphabetically by clicking A-Z
• By distance – results are ranked by proximity to the central postcode of the location you have searched
• By advertiser – you can prioritise advertisers who are likely to have more information in their listing

Refine your results

You can find a variety of tools in the left hand panel that will help you further improve the accuracy of your search results. These include:

• Businesses who – this allows you to filter your results to show only listings that are physically based in the location or show all businesses that serve the area.
• Change search type – you can search for either a business type or a specific business. This option allows you to specify which type of search you are doing.
• Did you mean this company – if the term you have typed into the Who or What box also matches closely to a specific business name it will be displayed as a link here
• Show businesses that are – here you can opt to see only results that advertise as belonging to a trade association, professional body or official dealership
• Similar headings – these links will take you to classifications of businesses that were a close or partial match to your search
• Related headings – these links will take you to other classifications of business that may also be of interested to you
• Location refinement – we will return results from the largest location that matches your search. Where there are more locations that match we display links to results for those areas here as well as tools to let you expand or narrow the search area
• See results with only – you can filter your results to show only those listings that have web sites or email addresses

Understanding the listings

The central column of the ThomsonLocal results page contains listings for businesses that match your search. Advertiser listings are shaded and typically have more information available.

Each listing has links which allow you to view a map and driving directions, see their Thomson Local directory advert, email them or click through to their web site.

Clicking the business name will take you to an information page for that business. Information pages contain full contact details, email and web site links and additional information about the business as well as maps and driving directions.

Toolbox

On the right hand side of the screen you will find our toolbox. Clicking the plot results on a map link will allow you to see all the results listed plotted on a map. The map pins are clickable and will expand to show the advertisers contact details.