Do you renew your data aggregator listings?

[Dan Foland]

Many of us submit our listings to the top 4 aggregators for new businesses, but I'm curious if you find it useful to renew your listings every year?

The 2 sides I see are:

1. The aggregators already have your info, and if your NAP hasn't changed does it make sense to renew?

2. The listings are no longer 'verified'/locked, does this even matter?

 

[whitespark]

We don't. Once the data has been distributed, it has been distributed, but here are the downsides of not renewing that you should keep in mind:

1) The listing will go into an unmanaged/unlocked state after the year subscription expires. This means that if other data sources are incorrect, the listing on the aggregator could become incorrect as well, and then it would pump out incorrect data to their distribution network again. We have seen this happen a number of times when offline sources like the phone company or secretary of state have the wrong data. It's critical to make sure your offline sources are accurate.

2) On Localeze, the listing will revert down to a really basic listing with only NAP info. No description, no URL, and no category. This doesn't bother me too much, because over the course of the year that the listing was active, it will have already distributed across Localeze's network with the info.

 

[pwa]

I am of the opinion that if you list citations "by hand", manually and not use a for-pay subscription, such as YEXT, the full listing stays intact. Down side, of course, is that many citation/directory sites do not allow a direct claiming of the business being listed. Yes No?

 

[markwaldin]

The aggregators want to make sure the data stays current. Refreshing the data helps do that.

Mark
www.insideedge.com

 

[jstob]

I agree with Mark; However, you should look at each aggregator individually as their processes and influences vary in the local ecosystem. Set it and forget it is not the road to take.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

I am of the opinion that if you list citations "by hand", manually and not use a for-pay subscription, such as YEXT, the full listing stays intact. Down side, of course, is that many citation/directory sites do not allow a direct claiming of the business being listed. Yes No?

For citations this is true.

For data aggregators, they all have their own policies and no one seems to know who will revert and who won't. I've heard a lot of stuff over the years. It would be great to get a clarification.

 

[jstob]

During a meeting, one of the aggregators once referred to "history of object". That term carries tremendous weight when it comes to a business listing. History of object can be many things. The last time you log into a GMB account to verify holiday hours, the last time the aggregator verified the business. These are all dates that can and are used to determine the data's freshness. Do some of the aggregators send a last updated date to the engines, you bet. Best practice, don't let it get stale.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

During a meeting, one of the aggregators once referred to "history of object". That term carries tremendous weight when it comes to a business listing. History of object can be many things. The last time you log into a GMB account to verify holiday hours, the last time the aggregator verified the business. These are all dates that can and are used to determine the data's freshness. Do some of the aggregators send a last updated date to the engines, you bet. Best practice, don't let it get stale.

Respectfully, I'm not sure how much this would be used in Google's algorithm. We log into the GMB page once a month fro our clients to make sure that, if this is part of the algorithm, we take advantage of it but personally, I doubt that even helps. Which makes me doubt even more that Google takes into consideration a "freshness" rating from a data aggregator. Especially when it was the data aggregator telling you this may be a factor. It seems like something they would say to get us to keep purchasing over and over when there is no need to potentially.

But, I've been super wrong before and will be again.

 

[Tim Colling]

But, I've been super wrong before and will be again.

...which is something we all could say.

 

[jstob]

This is a subject with many variables, but I'll take another swing. First, I am not associated with an aggregator but have had close relationships with them for over 11 years. I wrongfully described the meeting. The gentleman was a co-founder of one of the aggregators who had moved on and was doing consulting. I believe it was this individual that coined the phrase "history of object" and it's always stuck with me. Our discussion was about a brand with over 1,000 locations losing much of their organic traffic because a zealous agency account manager had set up a keyword-specific domain with toll-free tracking numbers and then hired a service with the ability to suppress listings to hijack much of the organic traffic. The campaign was canceled within days, but the damage & confusion to the local ecosystem was enormous. The cleanup took months, and if it wasn't for the aggregators pushing fresh data, it could have been much longer. The point is that the ecosystem responded to the fresher data to correct itself.
I brought up GMB specifically, but I should have said the local ecosystem more generally. It does respond to dates. Joshua, I applaud you for logging into your client accounts monthly. We don't know for sure if it's a factor, but think of Google's own search where you have the ability to click on Tools and select results found within the last week. Stale is stale. Renewing with the aggregators for $40 to $50 makes sense to me.

 

[Tony Wang]

I have been been renewing most of my clients annually, but that's because they had previous address changes so I'm concerned old data could still come back. If it's a new business, I'd be inclined to do one-and-done.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

This is a subject with many variables, but I'll take another swing. First, I am not associated with an aggregator but have had close relationships with them for over 11 years. I wrongfully described the meeting. The gentleman was a co-founder of one of the aggregators who had moved on and was doing consulting. I believe it was this individual that coined the phrase "history of object" and it's always stuck with me. Our discussion was about a brand with over 1,000 locations losing much of their organic traffic because a zealous agency account manager had set up a keyword-specific domain with toll-free tracking numbers and then hired a service with the ability to suppress listings to hijack much of the organic traffic. The campaign was canceled within days, but the damage & confusion to the local ecosystem was enormous. The cleanup took months, and if it wasn't for the aggregators pushing fresh data, it could have been much longer. The point is that the ecosystem responded to the fresher data to correct itself.
I brought up GMB specifically, but I should have said the local ecosystem more generally. It does respond to dates. Joshua, I applaud you for logging into your client accounts monthly. We don't know for sure if it's a factor, but think of Google's own search where you have the ability to click on Tools and select results found within the last week. Stale is stale. Renewing with the aggregators for $40 to $50 makes sense to me.

That's one of the worst stories I've ever heard. Yikes. Thanks for sharing.

And you make a good point. $40 - $50 a year is small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.