The directories were originally printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages for non-commercial listings.

Yellow pages directories are usually published annually and distributed for free to all residences and businesses within a given coverage area.

Available advertising space varies among publishers and ranges from bold names up to four color twin page ads ("double trucks").

Typically, sales representatives help customers to design their ads and provide a proof copy for review and approval.

Yellow pages' print usage is reported to be declining with both advertisers and shoppers increasingly turning to Internet search engines and online directories.

[7] As a result, most yellow pages publishers have attempted to create online versions of their print directories.

Independent ad agencies or Internet marketing consultants can assist business owners in determining sound opportunities for yellow pages advertising and provide objective information on usage, possession and preferences.

Archived yellow pages and telephone directories are important tools in local historical research and trademark litigation.

The Bell System later applied for a trademark on the logo but had its application denied on the grounds that it "had become a generic indicator of the yellow pages without regard to any particular source.

"[10] For a time in the late 1990s, the Yellow Pages Publishing Association began using a trademarkable logo with a lightbulb instead of the walking fingers (with the slogan "Get an idea") as part of an ad campaign featuring Jon Lovitz, intended to portray the Yellow Pages as a consumer resource that would give customers ideas as opposed to simply being a telephone directory; the end of these ads showed the walking fingers reaching down and grabbing a lightbulb from within the pages beneath.

[20] Conversely, publishers note that phone book directories are 100% recyclable and are made using soy-based and non-toxic inks, glues, and dyes.

[21] In 2011, San Francisco became the first city in the United States to restrict yellow page distribution to people who opt in,[22] but was being sued in federal court by the Local Search Association on freedom of speech grounds.

[15] The 2009 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Municipal Solid Waste report classified directories as the smallest contributor of paper and paperboard products to the solid waste stream, representing only 0.3% – significantly less than all other paper product categories such as newspapers, magazines and books.

[28] The EPA's 2011 Municipal Waste report showed that approximately 73% of phone directory, newspaper, and mechanical papers were recycled.

[29] In September 2017, Yell, the publisher of Yellow Pages in the United Kingdom, announced that the business would be fully digitized from January 2019, ending the publication's 51-year run.