Express Update - Has this happened to you?

[Amber Robinson]

So, I was attempting to claim a clients listing today but he had an old number listed so I gave Express Update a call to claim it with my Clients new business number.

As soon as I mentioned that I was calling to claim my clients listing the woman on the other end tells me that since I was hired by a small business that I have to use the bulk upload and that I cannot edit his current business listing. "Express Update is for small business owners, not SEO firms."

So, do I call back later and just lie?! Say "yes" when they ask me if I am the business owner? Or have have my client call and talk him through it?

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Amber

Sad but true. Pretty much the only option now is to have your client personally go through the phone-verification. There's no longer any way you can do it for him/her. But, it'll only take your client a few minutes.

FWIW, I wrote about this change back in June:

Latest Local SEO Labyrinth: the New ExpressUpdateUSA | LocalVisibilitySystem.com

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Amber,

Yep, this is normal these days. Express Update seems to be "anti-seo companies", and they will try to steer you towards the bulk update (which I don't fully understand how it works).

For your specific situation, have your client send an e-mail to them directly at contentfeedback@infogroup.com requesting to have the listing with the incorrect phone number updated, or removed if that's not possible. You can add a new listing if they delete it instead of updating it.

They seem to be responsive if the business owner is the one who contacts them.

Let me know how that works.

 

[RobinOctane]

PS Make sure you are completely logged out before claiming another biz. Today it did not show me logged in and I went to create a listing.

And it added to another clients account.

Hopefully can transfer it.

Perhaps this was happening too much and it's too sticky to fix one you claim it. So that they do it this way. The easier work around would be to just have a login status as the top of the page.

IMO

 

[russofford]

I have also had push back from support. I used to be able to email them and get duplicates removed, but now they say that the client themselves have to submit the request.

What I do is I draft up the email and ask my client to email the support and copy/paste exactly what I wrote.

This method worked to get a few dupes deleted recently.

- - -

Tips to claim a listing 'on behalf of' a client:

In order to claim listings, I work with the client over the phone and explain to them that when I press the 'button' on the website that they will need to be ready to write down a code that I will give to them.

When the code pops up on my screen, I quickly tell the client, then their phone rings within a second or two.

Yes, as mentioned earlier, be sure to log out of any existing InfoGroup account (as it sometimes won't show you that you are already logged in already.)

After the pin is input into the phone by the client, I am then prompted to create a new account with a unique email address for the client.

Russ