10 Billion Ways To Get A Link

You may have seen the news earlier this week that Greg Sterling and I have determined that bad business listing data may be costing US businesses $10 billion.

To provide more context for that number, Yext has just published the first issue of the Yext Quarterly (aka “YQ”), subtitled “The State of Location”.  The report was produced by myself and Greg for Yext to provide local marketers with  information on critical issues related to business location data, some local search marketing tips and some insights into the future of local search.  We even scored the actual last interview (we think) with Andrew Mason as CEO of Groupon, despite what other page-view-driven media outlets may claim.

Here’s Yext’s blog post announcing YQ.  Take a look and let me know either in the comments or via Twitter what you think.

Some of the media have also written pieces on the data from our consumer survey on local search behavior:

Financial Times: Online Data Errors Cost US Businesses $10B

VentureBeat: Outdated Online Listings Lead to $10.3B Loss for Business

BusinessInsider: An Interview With Andrew Mason (nice SEO’d title @HenryBlodget :))

Greg Sterling: The High Cost of Missing Business Listings