Contact: Jennifer Ratcliff
Manufacturers’ News, Inc.
(847) 864-9440 ext. 241
jratcliff [at] manufacturersnews.com
EVANSTON, Ill, July 8, 2008/Manufacturers’ News, Inc./--Manufacturers’ News, Inc. (MNI) announced today that it has acquired IndustryNet.com and will be merging it with its existing industrial search engine, mniguide.com, to create one of the nation’s most comprehensive guides for locating manufacturers and suppliers.
“IndustryNet became available to us, and we couldn’t pass it up” said Tom Dubin, President of MNI. “We feel it most accurately describes the site’s mission, which is to use the Internet to help find suppliers of industrial products and services.”
MNI, established 1912, compiles information about U.S. manufacturing establishments and other industrial businesses, and its search engine includes nearly 600,000 companies. MNI reports that mniguide.com has been receiving well over 20,000 unique searches every day.
Users have the ability to send e-mails or click through to the Web sites of the 25,000 companies that have preferred listings on the site. The site also allows users to send a request for quote to multiple companies, and more than 97,000 leads and inquiries were received within the past year.
IndustryNet is one of a growing number of vertical search engines that are gaining popularity. With an estimated one million new web pages coming online each day, industrial buyers are finding it increasingly difficult to sift through traditional search engine results to locate qualified vendors and suppliers. Vertical search engines, like IndustryNet, offer many unique advantages that help buyers save time and money.
Unlike major search engines, which index all websites on the Internet, IndustryNet lists only industrial companies. Each company is pre-qualified and verified manually by MNI's in-house editorial research staff to ensure relevancy and accuracy. Companies are organized within one or more of IndustryNet's 10,000 product/service categories so that buyers can locate only those vendors who have the capabilities to fit their unique needs. The result is that users of IndustryNet experience more relevant, higher quality search results, in less time than using a traditional search engine. The request for quote feature allows buyers to easily seek competitive bids from multiple suppliers.
“Buyers like the site because it’s simple to use, with no registration, fees or passwords, and it returns highly relevant results” says Dubin. “Sellers appreciate the fact that it’s one of the few places they can receive a steady stream of qualified leads and inquiries for an annual investment of less than $200.”
MNI offers preferred listings on the site in conjunction with print advertising in its annual state manufacturers directories. Dubin indicates that the site’s former URL, www.industrynet.com, will redirect to the IndustryNet domain for the foreseeable future.
Manufacturers’ News, Inc., publisher of manufacturers’ directories since 1912, compiles and produces manufacturing guides, statistics and databases for all 50 states. For more information, visit www.IndustryNet.com, or contact Manufacturers’ News, Inc., 1633 Central St., Evanston, IL, 60201, 847-864-7000, FAX 847-332-1100.
