Method and system for providing service listings in electronic yellow pages

A method and system for allowing a regional service merchant that is outside of a given geographical boundary, but services inside the geographical boundary, to be included in a result set of a search directed to a location inside the geographical boundary. Text and/or glyphs are returned along with the regional service merchant's business listing so as to explain to a user why a business not physically residing in the search area has been included in the result set. An application programming interface ensures that, if a business is listed as a regional service merchant, then the text and/or glyph is stored in association with the business listing.