Once upon a time, if a local media property cared at all about the Internet, they wanted to know how many searches got to their sites. It was a mildly useful number, but nothing compared to print circulation and the rich profit margins of advertising in those pages.

Google and Craigslist came along and demonstrated there could be more to such information than what a printing press cranked out each day. Those two sites became profitable, while the fortunes of local media look back at better days and sigh wistfully.

Some take a more proactive approach, as we learned from Gannett-owned Planet Discover, and its CEO, David Lenzen. Once a media company understands that local search isn’t web search, they can focus on targeting the right audience.

On the tech side, Planet Discover does what one might expect of it, pulling content from a media source’s archive, or classifieds sites with local-related listings, for example, into its search product. This redeploys and becomes available to searchers at the local media site.

Normalization of data comes into play when reaching for all of these pieces of information. Lenzen cited an example of crime statistics from various law enforcement agencies, all local to a given area. Those agencies may all use different means of archiving that data.

By normalizing the data, local search becomes a way for people to look closely at crime statistics for a given neighborhood. In another example, Lenzen said Planet Discover had to brew a solution quickly for an organization in South Dakota, which like many states found itself suddenly and immediately relevant in the Democratic primary season.

Such needs couple with the demand to monetize searches should lead more media properties into the world of search, as the need to complement declines in conventional revenue streams increases in importance. Planet Discover may be in a sweet niche to capitalize on this, thanks to their Gannett backing and previous success.

Over 100 websites controlled by Gannett’s (GCI) publishing empire will receive a healthy dose of local search technology. Gannett purchased privately held Planet Discover to fulfill that purpose.

Instead of partnering with an online advertising provider, Gannett, which owns USA Today and about 90 daily newspapers in the US, will keep all the advertising money it garners in-house.

Executives with both companies touted local search as the key point. “Gannett is exactly the kind of partner we need going forward. There are huge opportunities in local search, and Planet Discover is superbly positioned to take advantage of them,” said Terry Millard, president and CEO of Planet Discover.

“Gannett truly understands the importance of local information, which is why Planet Discover is such a perfect fit for us. With this new relationship, we will move more emphatically into deep, robust local search for our 100-plus Web sites,” said Jack Williams, president of Gannett Digital.

Local search is gearing up to reach billion-dollar figures in advertising sales. Borrell Associates has predicted $1 billion in local search ads in 2006 and $4 billion for local paid search ads by 2010.

Gannett isn’t the only publisher to see the glittering salvation of thousands of ad revenue dollars on the horizon. McClatchy (MNI) purchased Knight-Ridder earlier in 2006, and followed that with a local search marketing deal with WebVisible.

McClatchy will use WebVisible’s “Geneva” software to broker deals between advertisers and providers like Yahoo and Google. It’s a different approach than Gannett’s; McClatchy will work with the two big search advertisers instead.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.