Moz/Uberall Partnership

[sarmcl]

We use Moz and they are going through a transition and have partnered with Uberall for their Moz Local product. Is anyone else dealing with this transition?

 

[JoshuaMackens]

How did you find out about Uberall? I was wondering what Moz Local was up to.

 

[sarmcl]

How did you find out about Uberall? I was wondering what Moz Local was up to.

This article here(mind you Moz never disclosed this to us)

Moz Expands Partner Ecosystem, Delivers Best-of-Breed Local Presence Management & SEO

Moz, Inc., the leader in search engine optimization technology, today announced the expansion of its Partner Ecosystem. Uberall, Web.com, and SinglePl

www.businesswire.com

Moz basically white labeled the Uberall dashboard

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Great find!

Sounds like they're trying to compete in the Yext area. I wonder what the price point will be.

 

[sarmcl]

Great question. I have been trying to find that out for 2 weeks and nobody can tell us

 

[MiriamEllis]

Hi sarmcl! This is Miriam from Moz. Thank you for your question and for linking to the press release. I’m terribly sorry if you’ve had any trouble getting your questions answered. That’s correct — our partnership with Uberall has allowed us to enhance our platform and provide a greater expanse of features and functionality to our users. New pricing is available now on Moz Local Pricing. Please do let me know if you have any other questions.

The New Moz Local is just the first of many upgrades and new features we will be rolling out in the coming months, and you'll likely hear more news on that around the time of MozCon. Please, stay tuned!

 

[Andrew Shotland]

Hey you guys inspired me to write a thing https://www.localseoguide.com/moz-local-301s-to-uberall/

 

[Patricia Ptacek]

Hi sarmcl! This is Miriam from Moz. Thank you for your question and for linking to the press release. I’m terribly sorry if you’ve had any trouble getting your questions answered. That’s correct — our partnership with Uberall has allowed us to enhance our platform and provide a greater expanse of features and functionality to our users. New pricing is available now on Moz Local Pricing. Please do let me know if you have any other questions.

The New Moz Local is just the first of many upgrades and new features we will be rolling out in the coming months, and you'll likely hear more news on that around the time of MozCon. Please, stay tuned!

Hi Miriam,

Am i reading the new pricing correct in that the basic plan @ 129 per location does not include the aggregators?

 

[MiriamEllis]

Good morning, Patricia!
You are correct. For new purchases, the basic plan at $129 per location does not include distribution to aggregators. Existing Moz customers and their locations include aggregator distribution in the new platform. Hope this helps, and please feel free to contact help@moz.com if you have any further questions. We'd be happy to hear from you.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Has something with the product changed?

I looked at the new features and the main thing I noticed is submission through data aggregators is now more expensive.

I think the directory submission is different now too but it's not robust and I wouldn't use Moz Local for that. In fact, it looks like there was just a switch on which providers are used. Subtraction plus addition makes it look like its kind of stayed the same.

I think I'm missing something.

 

[Rich Owings]

So the price for data aggregators doubled. Here's another concern I have... I wonder if your listings will revert if you cancel, like what happens at Yext.

 

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Josh & Rich,
Thank you for your good questions. I'll try to answer both of your queries in this reply, as they are somewhat connected.

The new Moz Local is miles ahead of the previous version and new pricing is in place to cover new costs associated with the more sophisticated platform. We decided to offer a less expensive version, which doesn’t include aggregators, so we can offer affordable access to essential distribution partners like Facebook and Waze.

The new Moz Local now also includes time-saving functionality: real-time sync with partners including status updates when data is published, a data cleansing process to ensure formatting of each listing meets requirements, automated duplicate deletion, direct integration with Facebook, and an activity feed with profile suggestions.

Our partners will not revert listings after cancellation. We simply update our partners that your listing is no longer being managed. This means your listings may become vulnerable to unwanted updates by data aggregators & potentially undo the work you’ve done with Moz Local, unless claimed directly or through another publishing/management tool similar to Moz Local.

Hope this helps answer your questions!

 

[HoosierBuff]

I've always loved the moz product, and really trusted you guys. To me, I felt getting to the aggregators was super important, and one-off nowhere directories, not so much. I preached this aggregator focus to all my clients.

This change seems to focus more on the directories, and causes you to pay a high price to reach the aggregators. . . .and the price is HIGH.

My margin on listings only business was super tight anyway- and for so many local SEO clients, listings is pure cost that I eat for them.

My feedback is this:
- offer an aggregator only product at a reasonable cost. After all, it's what you told us was important for so long, and I've told my clients this
- I don't really care about managing Google or Facebook via moz. That may be great for a 300 location chain, for individual businesses, but for my clients I have to go to those sites already anyway.
- Really unsure of some of the added value features of the new product Profile suggestions? Activity feed? Waze? Is Waze not getting the data from Google, Maps or agregators already?

Meh. I never trusted the other guy in the business because I felt they had the bloodlust of a VC to IPO company, that perennially added "sizzle" to the product and thrived on confused users. This seems to emulate that product, with a price increase that feels gouge-y.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Hi Josh & Rich,
Thank you for your good questions. I'll try to answer both of your queries in this reply, as they are somewhat connected.

The new Moz Local is miles ahead of the previous version and new pricing is in place to cover new costs associated with the more sophisticated platform. We decided to offer a less expensive version, which doesn’t include aggregators, so we can offer affordable access to essential distribution partners like Facebook and Waze.

The new Moz Local now also includes time-saving functionality: real-time sync with partners including status updates when data is published, a data cleansing process to ensure formatting of each listing meets requirements, automated duplicate deletion, direct integration with Facebook, and an activity feed with profile suggestions.

Our partners will not revert listings after cancellation. We simply update our partners that your listing is no longer being managed. This means your listings may become vulnerable to unwanted updates by data aggregators & potentially undo the work you’ve done with Moz Local, unless claimed directly or through another publishing/management tool similar to Moz Local.

Hope this helps answer your questions!

Hey Miriam,

Is your target market no longer Local SEO's and small businesses? If it's not, these changes make sense. If we're still the target market, I'm not sure how this is a better fit?

Moz Local has always been a shortcut for us to update data aggregators. That is now much more expensive when we can use a BrightLocal for much less.

The marketing for the new service mentions only a handful of directories. Doesn't Uberall cover a ton of directories like Yext? Are you shifting from a data aggregator service to a Yext type of service? Is the marketing for Moz Local on the landing page out of date? Are you offering 50+ local directories for $299 a year?

I think we're just confused on what's going on here.

 

[Wary Goose]

Hi HoosierBuff-

If you're looking for aggregator-only pricing from Moz Local, I would ask your
Enterprise Customer Success Manager (if you're Enterprise Level) if they now offer it. Worth a shot.

 

[Chris Sheehy]

Moz Local is not ready for prime time, and I'm not certain the changes are an improvement. Here are some of the bumps I've come across in the first few hours of toying with it...

[UPDATED JUNE 20]

1. The screen hangs on the very first input page for a profile (workaround: hit Ctrl +5 then change the last digit (1) in the URL to "2" to forward the screen).
2. A township isn't being recognized, so citations are referring to the governing city - changing citations in the process. Moz says it's a Google thing; I doubt it since I've been here for 20+ years and have yet to have this problem with Moz or other services we subscribe to.
3. Payments, Brands, Social Profiles, and Images do not carry over from the previous version.
4. There is no provision to dismiss a suggested change - like listing an email on a profile. The prompt will remain in your face.
5. None of the previous analytics/report data carried over, so all reporting starts at zero.
6. The dashboard analytics don't state the timeframe for the data (assumed 30-day lookback).
7. The citation Navmii displays "Uberall" as the data provider - and does a lousy job with category matching.
8. yp.com, SuperPages, Yelp are not referenced (Gone).
9. Only Factual is being displayed as an aggregator (the others are still being programmed).
10. Linking Facebook will update the profile image with the logo image (I was surprised by this) Probs does the same thing for Google, but I haven't checked.
11. Categories are far from a complete listing from Google's catalog. I've come across two businesses whose categories were active in the previous MozLocal but are no longer an option.
12. The new MozLocal platform does not carry over an alarming amount of data (which was present in the previous platform). Having to re-enter images, social media, short descriptions, payment types, brands, and logos is an unexpected efficiency killer that cuts into daily productivity. Moz couldn't figure out how to map this stuff?
13. Dashboard does not save your preferences (e.g., sorting by Profile Completeness), or permit sorting by location name. The Search feature is nice though.
14. The Foursquare URL does not carry over to the Social Media Profiles entry. That would have been nice...or at least to offer a confirmation to have it programmatically added.
15. There is no provision for a toll-free number in the profile
16. There is no provision to enter old, outdated, or different business information for duplicate or out-of-date citations. We're supposed to rely on some mystery "Duplicate duplication" process which lacks any significant intel on how it works. If you've been doing this for a while - you likely have doubts it will work. I'll admit, automated dupe deletion scares me.
17. The "Review" count is completely irrelevant. It seems that UGC like images also trigger this metric.

On a positive note, if you manage citations with multiple locations, you can make a list of Keywords, Brands, Languages, and Services as comma separated words and paste them into their respective cells.

So far - I'm far from impressed. I question Moz's interest in Local; they are certainly not showing it. Not that the service was ever Great!, but it just became awfully horrible.

Props to @MiriamEllis for responding quickly and professionally to our concerns.

 

[Tim Colling]

It must not be fun to be @MiriamEllis today...

 

[MiriamEllis]

Hello HoosierBuff & Josh,
This is all important feedback, and I want to be sure you saw my earlier response that existing Moz Local customers still have the aggregators at the basic level. If you have any more questions related to this as a Moz Local customer, we are eager to hear from you at help@moz.com

But, here, in the forum, I want to go further on this with you, because it's a conversation that's evolving in the industry. A forum is a good place to talk about this.

Location data distribution remains core to any local search campaign, whether your business is small or an enterprise. Aggregators remain very important, but you've probably both been participants in discussions and debates over the past few years about the exact place of aggregators in the overall big picture of local search. Acxiom, for example, is shutting down at the end of the year. This leaves three big aggregators that we've all focused on for many years running. They remain important, but my guess is that your agencies and clients are beginning to see them in a different light than you might have in 2012, or even in 2016.

In the coming months, you will see Moz Local moving further than ever towards new levels of package customization. Maybe, for some of your smallest clients, an aggregator-only approach is all they need, and we want to meet such a need, but for most of your clients in competitive markets, goals are going to require much more diversified solutions. That's where we are heading with this.

Staged rollouts are always the hardest on customers. I hear you and I'm sorry for that weightless feeling that sometimes comes from change. It can be uncomfortable! But there is so much more to come with how we are growing our local product, and this growth period is something Moz knew we needed to go through to be able to deliver the product that meets the much bigger picture of local search marketing that customers need in 2019, 2020, and beyond.

We will continue to seriously consider every bit of input from customers. We welcome it, and hope you will keep an eye on Moz Local in the coming months.

 

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Chris!
I wanted to respond to you specifically because you've taken the time to list this all out. Some of these items are already being worked on, but we would always be so appreciative of you reporting any bugs directly to us. Please, if you can, take a moment to communicate your list to help@moz.com Thanks!

 

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Tim!
Thanks for the kind words. I'm doing great. Staged rollouts can be challenging, and the hardest thing for me right now is not being able to just show everybody in this awesome community everything that will be coming from Moz over the next few months. I'm only sorry if our customers are hitting some bumps along the road, and am committed to making the growth process as painless as I can. Thanks, Tim!