Why Fixing Bad N.A.P. Data Issues Sucks
Nyagoslav (think Cher, Michael, Brittany, etc.) gets all OCD on my recent post where I used our NAP Hunter extension to surface some bogus N.A.P. data issues. He really peels back the rotten onion:
“The NPI registry is one of the most trustworthy data sources in the medical industry, so the chances that this was the initial source of the bad data are very high. What is of particular interest is the fact that the NPI record was last updated on December 15, 2011, more than two and a half years ago, and there are still listings online that feature that outdated information.”
and
“Since I know that Citysearch gets data from InfoGroup, this lead me to guess that there was a listing on Infogroup that might have featured the incorrect information, but had been updated at some point in the past on ExpressUpdate.com. And, if so, it’s possible that the data made its way to Google via Infogroup, which is an official data partner of Google.
But I was left with the remaining questions:
- Where did Infogroup get the data from?
- Where did Factual get the data from?”
I have four reactions to Nyago’s work:
- I agree that my superficial analysis may not have solved the mystery
- While InfoGroup and Acxiom may have direct feeds into Google, Nyago does not take into account that Google’s crawlers may have found the data on its own from any number of sources and taken it as the source of truth. Only Google knows for sure at this point.
- Solving problems with bad N.A.P. data sucks. It’s the equivalent of taking a pork chop to a gun fight.
- Nyago should seek professional help for his unhealthy obsession. I am thinking a G+ Hangout Intervention this Wednesday at 11am PT. + me if you’re in.
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