Why Is Your Business Information Out of Date?

How many times have you found out of date information about your business on the Web? At Insider Pages we averaged several inquiries per day from disgruntled businesses because we were displaying an incorrect phone number, address or name.

The problem was that we, like most local search sites, were getting our data from a third party -– companies such as Localeze, Acxiom, InfoUSA and IBeginSource – and in order to get the data updated on our site it would have to go to our data provider first so they could put it in their master database. Then we would have to wait to for them to update their file and send it to us. Then we’d have to wait until our developers could update our database with the new file. This process could sometimes take three months or more.

Some sites don’t have this problem because they have decided to own the master record for a business and have more control, but this process is expensive and not without its drawbacks so it’s not something that every site will do.

Couple this with the methodologies these data companies use to build their databases – some actually have people retype all of the information from a business’ yellow pages ad – and you begin to see why your listing might have some accuracy issues.

All of these companies have a vested interest in your data being accurate and I know of several efforts to both improve and speed up the process of local search data updating, but you still should regularly check to make sure that all of your info is correct.

For more info check out How to Update Your Internet Yellow Pages Listing for Free.

If you need some help getting your business info updated across the Web please drop me an email at localseo at localseoguide.com.