Clients Business name now has an "A" in front of all it's YEXT site listings

[SEO-learner-brandon]

I do citation management through BrightLocal and this month I saw a new error come up with the NAP details. It appears that all the YEXT connected sites (Yellowpages, Whitepages, Citysearch, Superpages, etc.) that used to list my clients actual business name as "Blinds Company xyz" are now showing up as "A Blinds Company xyz".
We do not use YEXT and are not a fan of it as a company, but I'm curious is this something that a competitor could do if they claimed the business listings and changed the name.

If anyone has any idea how this might happen I would love to know more.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@SEO-learner-brandon, the most-likely explanation is that the "A" version of your client's name is used on ExpressUpdate.com and maybe on LocalEze, which provide data to various sites, like the Yext-network ones you mentioned. When you haven't claimed your listing on one of those Yext-influenced sites, the name by default usually is whatever name the data provider(s) fed in.

The other likely explanation is the client used to have Yext, realized it was a paperweight, and let it lapse. Your client's listings on various sites then kept around the pre-Yext version of the name, or the Yext-propagated version of the name, or some combination of the two.

It's unlikely to be a competitor's work, for a variety of reasons. One is that the "A" version of the name wouldn't mess up your client's rankings. (A competitor who wanted to throw a wrench in the works could do a much better job than that.)