Google Maps vs Yellow Pages vs Registries (2026)

When building a business prospecting database, you typically rely on three main sources: Yellow Pages (or similar directories), company registries (like Companies House or state filings), and Google Maps. Each has strengths, but none is complete on its own. This comparison helps you choose the right business lead database for your needs and shows how combining all three gives you the most actionable file.

Yellow Pages: the legacy directory and its limitations

Advantages

• Brand recognition: still the first reflex for many people searching for local businesses
• Contact data: phone numbers are usually available, sometimes website links
• Category structure: well-organized by trade and industry
• Historical coverage: decades of data on tradespeople, shops and local services

Limitations

• Pay-to-play model: Yellow Pages sell visibility. Businesses that haven't paid are missing or poorly listed, creating a massive coverage bias
• No email addresses: listings rarely include email, which is essential for outbound campaigns
• No public API: automated extraction is impossible, and scraping violates their terms of service
• Outdated data: closed businesses remain listed for months, phone numbers go stale
• No company registration numbers: no legal data like tax IDs, company directors or legal form
• No reviews or ratings: impossible to filter by reputation or service quality

Yellow Pages are a starting point, but the resulting file will be incomplete and biased toward businesses that pay for visibility.

Company registries: legal data without contact information

Advantages

• Tax/registration IDs: each listing contains the official company identification number
• Director information: name of the legal representative, useful for personalizing outreach
• Legal details: industry codes, legal form, founding date, share capital
• Exhaustive coverage: based on official government data, so every registered company is present
• Financial data: revenue figures available for companies that file public accounts

Limitations

• No phone numbers: registries don't provide direct phone contacts
• No email addresses: no email data available
• No website links: company URLs are rarely listed
• No reviews or ratings: no reputation indicators
• Expensive exports: bulk downloads require costly premium subscriptions (hundreds per month)
• Sole traders poorly covered: freelancers and micro-businesses are listed with minimal data
• No precise geolocation: impossible to target by neighborhood or radius

Company registries are perfect for verifying a tax ID or finding a director's name, but unusable as a primary prospecting source: every means of contact is missing.

Google Maps: the most exhaustive database, with technical limits

Advantages

• Unmatched coverage: Google Maps lists more businesses than any other directory. Even tradespeople, food trucks and micro-businesses that never paid for advertising appear
• Rich data: name, address, phone, website, hours, photos, business category
• Reviews and ratings: Google's review system lets you filter by reputation (average rating, review count)
• Precise geolocation: GPS coordinates, ability to target exact areas
• Fresh data: regularly updated by Google and by business owners themselves
• Businesses missing elsewhere: many SMBs and local shops are on Google Maps but absent from Yellow Pages and poorly listed in registries

Limitations

• 120-result limit: a Google Maps search never returns more than 120 results per query. For "restaurants Paris", you get 120 out of 15,000+, meaning 99.2% are invisible
• No registration IDs: Google Maps provides no tax ID, director name or legal data
• No email: Google Maps listings don't show email addresses directly. You must visit each company's website to find them
• No manual export: copy-pasting 500 listings takes hours, and Google offers no CSV export

Google Maps is the richest and freshest source, but it requires tools to bypass the 120-result limit and enrich the missing data (emails, registration IDs). That's exactly what IBLead does.

Comparison table: Yellow Pages vs Company Registries vs Google Maps

Criteria	Yellow Pages	Company Registries	Google Maps
Number of businesses	~4 million (listed)	~11 million (registered)	~10+ million (active)
Coverage bias	Yes (pay-to-list)	No (legal data)	No (any visible business)
Phone	Yes	No	Yes
Email	Rarely	No	No (on website)
Website	Sometimes	Rarely	Yes
Registration ID / legal data	No	Yes	No
Director name	No	Yes	No
Reviews / rating	No	No	Yes
GPS geolocation	Approximate	No	Yes (precise)
Opening hours	Sometimes	No	Yes
Photos	Paid	No	Yes
CSV export	No	Paid (premium)	No (without tools)
API	No	Paid	Yes (Places API, paid)
Cost	Free (browsing)	Free / $100-500/mo (premium)	Free (browsing)
Data freshness	Variable	Quarterly	Continuous

The verdict is clear: no single source checks every box. Yellow Pages have phone numbers but not exhaustiveness. Company registries have legal IDs but no contacts. Google Maps has the most data but lacks registration IDs and emails.

The winning combination: IBLead aggregates all 3 sources

This is exactly the problem IBLead solves. Instead of juggling three websites and manually cross-referencing data, IBLead automatically combines:

• Google Maps: name, address, phone, website, category, reviews, rating, hours, photos, GPS, status
• Web enrichment: automatic crawl of each company's website to extract up to 5 emails, social media profiles (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, YouTube), and detected technologies
• Registration ID matching: automatic cross-referencing with official government business registers to add tax IDs, director names, industry codes and legal form

What this changes in practice

Criteria	Separate sources	IBLead
Coverage	Partial (Yellow Pages bias)	Exhaustive (all of Google Maps, no 120 limit)
Emails	Manually from websites	Up to 5 emails extracted automatically
Registration IDs	Copy-paste from registries	Automatic matching (name + address)
Time to build	Hours/days for 500 leads	Export in a few clicks
Format	3 files to merge in Excel	1 CSV with all columns
Cost	Registry premium + human time	From $35/month

A complete prospecting file in 3 clicks

With IBLead, your prospecting file contains for each business:

• Business name + description
• Full address + GPS coordinates
• Phone + website
• Up to 5 professional emails
• Social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X)
• Google rating + review count
• Tax ID + industry code + legal form
• Director name
• Opening hours

It's the most complete business lead database on the market. And unlike DIY scraping that requires days of development and hundreds in proxy costs, IBLead is ready to use.

The right tool at the right price

IBLead subscriptions start at $35/month. That's less than one month of a premium registry subscription, and far less than the cost of a single DIY scraping run (server + proxies + dev time). Competitors like Scrap.io charge $49/month minimum, which is $588/year.

Conclusion: don't choose, combine

The debate of Yellow Pages vs Google Maps vs company registries is a false dilemma. Each source has data the others don't. The real question isn't "which one to pick" but "how to combine them efficiently".

IBLead does this work for you: it aggregates Google Maps data, enriches each listing with emails and social media, and adds official registry data (tax IDs, directors, industry codes). The result: a complete, up-to-date and immediately actionable business prospecting database.

Try IBLead for free and build your first prospecting file in minutes.