How many times have you found out of date information about your business on the Web?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.
4 Response Comments
You don’t have to ‘wait’ for us Andrew – you can send an automated trackback to iBegin Source: http://source.ibegin.com/trackback_system.php
Otherwise – spot on. We get as many (if not more) corrections as we do submissions. And a lot of the corrections are more along the lines of ‘business moved’ or ‘new phone’ etc.
Talk about headaches 🙂
The term “Rube Goldberg contraption” comes to mind when I think about this stuff.
I’m a big fan of Localeze. Out of all the others we’ve tried, they’re superior. Ultimately, we have to fill the holes and gaps ourselves, and that’s something we’re going to also empower our community to help us with (not revolutionary, but one more weapon).
Insider Pages has an account for MY business I did not sign up for. A competetor did and has been placing bad reviews almost daily. I can not get ANYONE at InsiderPages to contact me or find a number for them. Mean while who knows how much business I am loosing or the damage to my rep.