Frustrated - Broken Directories!

[Caroline]

Hi,

Knowing that I need to get my clients on trusted directories, I get so frustrated with those deemed important but which don't work. Example is 2findlocal.com. I have registered and await a verification email but it never comes. This has happened a few times with other clients. No response either from the contact us form for help.

Some never get added at all. It would be great to have a list of directories that actually work. I use Brightlocal and understand which directories to add to but have poor experiences with some of them. Anyone else found similar?

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Hey Caroline,

Running a business listing service myself, I understand your pain all too well.

Sites are constantly going down, sometimes coming back and sometimes not. It's a constant dance.

2findlocal has been down for close to 6 months now. As has their sister site favecentral. They are not sending confirmation emails.

A good start for you would be the Basic 5 of course: Google, Bing, Yelp, Yellowpages, Facebook. I'm sure you already have those.

From there I would go to Apple Maps, hubbiz, yellowbook, local.com, superpages, kudzu, mapquest, foursquare, angieslist, elocal, spoke, local.botw.org, merchantcircle, brownbook, alignable, whodoyou, myhuckleberry, cylex, ezlocal, manta, showmelocal, hotfrog, n49.

That's a good start. And I can 100% verify that all of the above will work. You will definitely have to do some digging to figure it all out. But they will work as of 2/13/18.

Hope that helps!

 

[Caroline]

Hi Joshua,

Thanks a lot. I've got most of the UK directories. 2findlocal was part of BrightLocal's suggestions when you use their tool so I guess they need to keep on top of which directories are closing so we don't go chasing for no reason!

Many thanks

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Hi Joshua,

Thanks a lot. I've got most of the UK directories. 2findlocal was part of BrightLocal's suggestions when you use their tool so I guess they need to keep on top of which directories are closing so we don't go chasing for no reason!

Many thanks

You're absolutely welcome!

 

[alawyer]

Hi

Would welcome your pointers on reliable UK directories.

Thanks

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Here are a couple resources to get you pointed in the right direction.

UK Citation Sites | Find The Best Local Citations In the UK

https://whitespark.ca/top-local-citation-sources-by-country/united-kingdom/

 

[Caroline]

Great Colan. The only thing is that Brightlocal is out of date as I mentioned above the 2findlocal is listed but it is now closed as per the earlier comments but it doesn't let you know so you waste time submitting and getting nowhere. Oh the joys!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Great Colan. The only thing is that Brightlocal is out of date as I mentioned above the 2findlocal is listed but it is now closed as per the earlier comments but it doesn't let you know so you waste time submitting and getting nowhere. Oh the joys!

I'd use the Whitespark list then. It seems to be up to date and it only lists the top 30 so it's a high quality list.

 

[Yan Gilbert]

It definitely is frustrating going through submission directories only to find out that they are 'broken'.

 

[travelincat]

Months ago I notified BrightLocal about directories that were not working and they said they would fix them. Nada.

 

[Digitaldar]

Months ago I notified BrightLocal about directories that were not working and they said they would fix them. Nada.

I Tweeted to them as well about this and they seemed "surprised" and were going to update it... crickets...

 

[Myles Anderson]

Hi all. Saw this thread and wanted to answer some of your questions & concerns.

Public Citation Lists

We typically update these 'public' lists every 3-4 months. I can see from our publish logs that we last updated this UK list 3 months ago so it's due a review and our marketing team are reviewing this week - based on seeing this thread i should add!

FYI - we have pretty good success submitting to 2FindLocal and the site is still functioning. It is part of the Yext network but you can still manage your listing on there without going through Yext.

Internal Citation Lists

We also have our own internal lists that we use within our Citation Building service. These differ from the external lists because we're not able to submit to some sites but business owners can - e.g. via Yext. This internal list is kept up to date by our submission team every day as we identify that sites go down or change their submission policy. We have 80 people in our citation team so we are able to quickly identify changes to sites. We also add new sites that we identify, especially niche or local sites.

Happy to answer any more questions so will monitor this thread. I'll also let you know when the UK list is fully reviewed & updated.

 

[travelincat]

Myles, love your product, but the citation tracker is almost useless. I spend too much time following dead links and dead sites. Some examples:

You still list Directory Central yet: http://www.directorycentral.com/ shows it is dead.

Your link to Corporation Wiki is: https://www.corporationwiki.com/Profiles/New a 404.

Just Dial is an Indian listing site only: https://www.justdial.com/Free-Listing

Your link to Local Stack: San Diego, CA Businesses Trending on Social Media redirects to San Diego, CA and then you have to use Yext to submit to them.

You need to have someone go to each link that you offer and verify they exist/work properly.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Myles, love your product, but the citation tracker is almost useless. I spend too much time following dead links and dead sites. Some examples:

You still list Directory Central yet: http://www.directorycentral.com/ shows it is dead.

Your link to Corporation Wiki is: https://www.corporationwiki.com/Profiles/New a 404.

Just Dial is an Indian listing site only: https://www.justdial.com/Free-Listing

Your link to Local Stack: San Diego, CA Businesses Trending on Social Media redirects to San Diego, CA and then you have to use Yext to submit to them.

You need to have someone go to each link that you offer and verify they exist/work properly.

Just a heads up on a few of those:

directorycentral.com was looking to sell their site and no one bought. It's down and not coming back up.

LocalStack isn't coming back either I imagine. It was a good idea but the phone verification stopped working awhile ago unfortunately.

The others I don't have any insight on.

 

[Myles Anderson]

@travelincat Apologies for slow reply - been in/out of meetings most of the last day.

We are currently focused very hard on improving Citation Tracker. I agree with you that i needs a lot of improvement - i wouldn't go so far as to say it's useless, but it certainly suffers from inconsistency. But ironing out these issues is our highest priority right now.

The trouble we have is the pace which some sites come & go, and the internal changes they make - e.g. changing their add-listing URL. Given that we have active records for around 10,000 sites there's a lot to stay on top of. But I can assure you that we're doing a thorough review of these now.

As a strange example - directorycentral.com - we don't often go to their homepage, but direct to listing pages and these pages are still active - e.g. PC Mobile Help, Seattle, WA - Company Info (206) 686-8...

CorporationWiki - yes you are correct. We still report on listings but stopped submitting to them last year. We'll get that link updated ASAP. We're also going to remove this site from top citations shortly.

Justdial - actually they have domains for different countries and a DA score of 72 so I disagree that they are just an Indian listing site only.

- Top Accident Insurance, 12th st wendy way in New York - Justdial US
- https://www.justdial.com/ca/ON-Toronto/Dentists/nct-18030300

LocalStack - the site is still active and carries a lot of listings. You need to use Yext to access & update. But we display this because people want to know where they have listings (or not) so they can manage them - even if they can't do it through BrightLocal.

 

[tedchan]

Thanks for adding CareDash, Myles! I wish the others were as easy...

Hi all. Saw this thread and wanted to answer some of your questions & concerns.

Public Citation Lists

We typically update these 'public' lists every 3-4 months. I can see from our publish logs that we last updated this UK list 3 months ago so it's due a review and our marketing team are reviewing this week - based on seeing this thread i should add!

FYI - we have pretty good success submitting to 2FindLocal and the site is still functioning. It is part of the Yext network but you can still manage your listing on there without going through Yext.

Internal Citation Lists

We also have our own internal lists that we use within our Citation Building service. These differ from the external lists because we're not able to submit to some sites but business owners can - e.g. via Yext. This internal list is kept up to date by our submission team every day as we identify that sites go down or change their submission policy. We have 80 people in our citation team so we are able to quickly identify changes to sites. We also add new sites that we identify, especially niche or local sites.

Happy to answer any more questions so will monitor this thread. I'll also let you know when the UK list is fully reviewed & updated.

 

[Tim Colling]

i would go so far as to say it's useless

I think @Myles Anderson probably meant to say "...i would NOT go so far as to say..."

 

[Myles Anderson]

@Tim Colling thank you for pointing that out - you're absolutely correct that I meant 'NOT go so far' - i've updated my earlier comment. Serves me right for not double checking my work...i'm always telling my kids to do it...I should head my own words

I appreciate the heads-up.

 

[Tim Colling]

You are welcome, @Myles Anderson !