192.com Blog

Today we’ve officially launched our new Company Credit Reports facility, the same day we’ve been named ‘Website of the Day’ by Pocket Lint. And if Pocket Lint’s suggestion that, if you haven’t tried 192.com for a while now is the time to do it, doesn’t get you on the site perhaps the addition of this tool to help you safeguard against bad debt will.

What we set out to do with the new 192.com was to make it easy to access new data and so take directories to a powerful new level. The addition of Company Credit Reports is just another example of this. Not even a week after the government’s Insolvency Service announced a 39% increase in company liquidations, this is a useful tool that helps you understand the financial position of key customers and suppliers. It’s a bleak fact that insolvencies have increased at such a dramatic rate but at least unlike before, small businesses and even consumers now have instant, online access to information that previously would have been the domain of big business.

Company credit reports are now available for over 1 million of the records in 192.com’s Business Directory or can be searched directly from our Company Credit Reports portal.

One of the best features is the ‘monitor this company’ facility which allows you to setup free email alerts that notify you if the status of the company changes (such as the posting of new accounts, change of directors, or change of risk status / record of CCJs).

Try it out and let us know how you find it: http://www.192.com/creditreports/

We hope you’re enjoying discovering the new 192.com. We’ve heard some great feedback from users and the media so far, including Web User magazine who declared it the website of the fortnight and assigned it a 5 star rating. They said that “the 192.com directory has been radically revamped to make it more comprehensive and user-friendly” and “the smart new 192.com is like several useful online resources rolled into one“.

Other recent comments in the media include:

“Next to this (the new 192.com), traditional directory enquiries services such as Yell.com feel feeble” 
Rob Waugh, The Mail on Sunday

“Let’s face it: The Da Vinci Code could have been solved with Wikipedia and 192.com” 
Damon Wise, The Guardian

So if you need to find people, businesses or places make 192.com your only destination today.  

I’m a very visual person so one of the features of the site I find most helpful is the maps on the results page. This means that instead of just scrolling down a list of results, you can see the people or businesses that you’ve searched for in relation to each other on a map. This was one of the features of the new site that mapping expert Mapperz liked most.

So for example, if you’ve searched for a business, you can find the one closest to your home or a train station. Alternatively, if you’ve searched for a person you can see results in relation to each other. If you’re a signed in user with premium search credits this feature is particularly useful if you’ve searched UK wide (i.e. without specifying a location). Because if you know a person lives in the south east of England, for example, you’ll be able to identify those listings on a map straight away.

If you click on any of the numbered bubbles on the maps, 192.com will give you a snap shot of the contact details for that person or business with a link to the full details page.

Don’t forget, you can resize the map at any time by clicking and dragging the slider between the map and the list of search results.

See your results in relation to each other on a map with the new 192.com:

My favourite new feature on the new site is the refine your search capabilities. If you do a search you will see a bar down the left hand side which is called Refine Your Search. If you click on this bar or the arrow at the top, it will open up a window which allows you to do all sorts of things to narrow down your search to the person or business you are looking for.

For people, the window will show you all the different forenames and surnames that match your search and you can click on them to narrow down your search to the person you want. We also show you age ranges where we have them for people so if you know how old the person is you are looking for you can narrow down your search quickly and easily. We also show you all the occupations for any directors that match your search.

For business searches we allow you to narrow down your search by classification so if you know what the company does you can quickly and easily get to it.

For both people and businesses we will also show you all the locations that the person or business you have searched for are based, which along with having maps on the results page makes it very easy to find the person or business you want.

One last trick, if you only want to show people with telephone numbers, if you set the source to telephone directory in the window, it will only show people with telephone numbers.

For more information, read our guide to refining your search: http://www.192.com/content/help/refinesearch/

I hope you like this new feature,

Dominic

 The new 192.com Refine Search panel:

The new 192.com is now live, after 18 months of hard work, you are now seeing the new and improved 192.com.

We have conducted lots of research and testing to make sure the new site is a vast improvement on the old one. Please let me know what you like and don’t like about the new site as we will be continuing to improve it.

The key element of the new site is to make it much easier to find the information you are looking for, we have completely rewritten our search engine from the ground up making the search much more likely to find the information you are looking for. We have introduced a new refine your search capability which allows you to narrow down your search quickly and easily to find the person or business you are looking for.

We have made the site much more visual from including maps on the result pages so you can see where each of your results are located, to visually displaying things like neighbours, property prices and shops nearby on the details page.

We have now added Company Credit Reports, so in this current economic climate you can check on the financial stability of companies that you are doing business with.

I would like to thank everyone who took part in our research from those I met personally to everyone who has filled in a survey or tried the new site when it was in Beta, all of your feedback has been very important in building the new site.

So go and have an explore of the new site and give us your feedback,

Thank you,

Dominic

Discover the new 192.com >>