SA Yellow help

SA Yellow puts the names, addresses and telephone numbers of over 400,000 SA businesses at your fingertips. You can search by classification for companies matching the type of business you need, or you can look for details of a specific company by searching for a company name.

The links below will help you with using SA Yellow or getting your company listed on the site.


Search Tips

The search forms let you find listings for businesses based in South Africa on your own criteria. If you want listings for a type of business, select "Category Search". If you want the listing for a particular business, select "Business Name Search".

General information about searching:

• You can search using the Location field and at least one other field.
• It doesn't matter whether you use upper or lowercase letters.
• Do not use abbreviations. Enter a city such as JHB as Johannesburg.

How to Use the "Category Search"

The "Category Search"  is used to find businesses of a particular type. Enter a word here to search for all related businesses. The business categories are mainly the Standard Industrial Classifications (SICs) developed by the South African Government.


Tips for using the "Category Search"

• Enter a word related to the type of business you're interested in, for example diamond. The service will return a list of all categories that match the word, for example Diamonds-Retail and Diamond Cutters. You can then select from the list of matching categories to display the individual business listings.
• To search for a phrase include the words in single quotes. (E.g. ‘take away’)
• To search for inclusive and exclusive words use + and/or -. (E.g. +motor -repair)

How to Use the "Business Name Search"

The "Business Name Search"  is used to find businesses whose name contains a particular word or words.


Tips for using the "Business Name Search"

• Entering a partial name will supply all businesses starting with your input. For example if you request a business Stan the results will include among others; Standard Bank and Stans Furniture.
• You can add an * in front of a word  to include all business names that partially match your input. For example, any of the following entries (among others) could be used in the Business Name field to find Jack and Jill Water Features: Jack and Jill *Water, or *Jill.
• It is usually best to omit the generic parts of business names, like Company, Incorporated, or (Pty) Ltd.

How to Use the Location Field

The Location field is used to find businesses located in a particular Location. Using the Location fields is one of the best ways to narrow down your search to a specific area.


Tips for using the Location field:

• On the  search form, select a Location from the pull-down menu.
• You can also view a map of how the locations is divided by clicking here.

What to do if no matching listings are found

There are several reasons why the service may find no matching listings even when you have reason to believe there probably are some listings:

• The name of the Keyword you typed may not be recognised. Try again using a synonym. 
• Something may have been misspelled. Correct any spelling mistakes and search again.
• Abbreviations are not recognised, so be sure that all words are spelled out in full and then search again.

Matching Categories page

If SA Yellow finds more than one category that matches the search criteria, a Matching Categories page is displayed. This page shows how many listings and how many different categories match your search criteria. Then, each matching category is listed in alphabetical order according to relevance along with a summary of how many listings it contains. Note that the same business may appear in more than one category. Just click on a category to see the matching listings in that category.


Results page

All listings that match your search criteria are displayed on this page.

The list can contain two sections:

Priority Listings

• This section begins at the top of the first page and displays all listings that include Company Information.
• If none of the listings includes Company Information, the Advertisers section is not displayed.

All Listings

• This section contains all the matching listings in a given Category, excluding those listings that are displayed in the Advertisers section.
• If all the listings include Company Information, the All Listings section is not displayed.

Order of Listings

If a search results in more than 7 listings in any one category, the Results page for that category will display an index at the bottom of the page. You can jump to the previous or the next page (each page contains up to 7 listings).

An index form A to Z and * is displayed at the bottom of the results page. By clicking on a letter you will be forwarded to the first business name matching your selection, the * is for business names starting with a non alphabetical letter. If the Letter is grayed out it means that there is no Business names starting with that letter.