InfoUsa - Odd Thing Happening

[Colan Nielsen]

Morning All,

Wondering if anyone has encountered this situation before. A client had 2 listings on InfoUSA, one with the current address and one with the former address. I sent in a request to have the incorrect listing deleted several months ago. Now when you search the businesses phone number in InfoUsa it still brings up both listings. However, when you click on the incorrect listing it goes to the correct listing.

I thought this was really odd and was hoping someone had a thought as to what's happening here. Is this their way of fixing a deleted listing request? Is it in some kind of limbo?

Thanks

 

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Colan,
I'm sorry, but I've never run into that before. I hope one of our members will have some real feedback on that. Interesting to hear that they would redirect rather than delete. Odd, for sure.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Thanks for weighing in Miriam. It's probably just "one of those things".

Maybe Nyagoslav will see this thread. Something tells me he might have seen this happen before...

 

[Nyagoslav]

Hey Colan,

Actually yes! I have dealt a few times with duplicate/outdated listings on Express Update (InfoUSA). It definitely seems to me that this is their way of solving duplicate listings. I am not sure why in their public UI the footprint does not go away, but it seems that everything is fine at their back end so this is what is important. Other site that solves duplicates in similar way is Yellowbot. They redirect the URL of the reported listing to the correct listing.

On a related note - a few sites that are really annoying when it comes to removing duplicates: Citysearch.com, Insiderpages.com, and Mojopages.com... They do not delete the listings, but rather include a message on the page that says "This business is closed", or "According to our information this business is no longer at this location", etc. But the listing is still up there and very indexable, too

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Nyag, we were hoping you'd see this and weigh in!

 

[Nyagoslav]

Actually, is there some way to add some mechanism of tagging to the forum, similar to the social networks, so for instance if I write @Linda Buquet and your name will pop up and you'll be notified of the mention? I think if that's possible it could enhance the discussions drastically. Also if there is specific section for business directories (or for local search citations in general), I think reps from these websites could get active there, because right now questions on this topic are all over the place and even if they want to, it could be hard for them to follow all threads in all sections.

Just a couple of cents

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Thanks Nyagoslav. I had a feeling that is the case with InfoUSA. As long as they aren't still pushing out the old info and they just keep it to themselves then it shouldn't really matter. I'll just assume that they have hoarding issues and just can't seem to let go

 

[Vijay Marathe]

Hello all,

Has anybody tried updating a business listing on InfoUSA's Beta Website?

I was able to get one listing verified yesterday. You now require to go through the phone verification step to claim and edit a listing.

However, today the website continued to show error for the whole day.

And while searching if someone else is experiencing something similar, I came across this thread on Moz: Express Update USA not available for SEO's | Moz Q&A

It would be great to know about your recent experiences with expressudateUSA.

Thanks,

Vijay

 

[Linda Buquet]

Sorry Vijay, I don't have anything to add, just wanted to thank you for sharing that MOZ thread. Very enlightening and makes a few good points.

 

[Vijay Marathe]

The website is working alright now.

Thanks

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Vijay

I did notice the update to ExpressUpdateUSA. Not wild about it. But I haven't had occasion to go in and update a listing since before the update, so thanks for the intel.

Are you saying that even to make a change to a claimed listing - in an account you created before the recent facelift - you need to phone-verify any updates you want to make? Or is it just the case that you need to phone-verify new listings you add, and that after that you don't have to verify again?

 

[Vijay Marathe]

@Phil

We need to go through the phone verification step for both - editing a listing as well as adding a listing. And, we can create an account only after the verification. However, there is no option to delete a duplicate / bad listing, so i believe we might have to go through their contact us form.

 

[Phil Rozek]

Thanks a bunch, Vijay. I've done some digging as well and have come to the same conclusions. I've also noticed that you can't use your old ExpressUpdate login info.

Working on a blog post as we speak, which I'll publish shortly.

What's nice is the "Beta feedback" tray in the lower-left corner. They actually seem to be trying to work out the kinks.

 

[Phil Rozek]

BTW, I did a post on this last night:

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