{"id":7436,"date":"2016-12-21T16:21:25","date_gmt":"2016-12-21T16:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fixmyinfo.com\/?p=7436"},"modified":"2016-12-28T14:41:34","modified_gmt":"2016-12-28T14:41:34","slug":"prevent-online-data-conflict-ruining-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fixmyinfo.com\/prevent-online-data-conflict-ruining-business\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Prevent Online Data Conflict from Ruining Your Business"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Imagine you\u2019ve just won $1 million from Publishers Clearing House, and now they want to arrange a time to give you a giant check on national TV. Too bad they had your phone number wrong and confirmed it with bad online data \u2026 so now someone else gets this life-changing prize.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Prevent Online Data Conflict So You Don\u2019t Miss That Call<\/h3>\n

Wouldn\u2019t that be terrible? Well, that\u2019s analogous to what happens when there\u2019s conflicting information about your business online. Your name, phone number, address \u2026 and all your other contact information should read the same, whether that information is coming from Yelp, your local BBB, Google Places or any of the hundreds of other internet business directories.<\/p>\n

Bad Online Data Shortchanges Everyone<\/h3>\n

If your online business data isn\u2019t consistent, then your would-be customers could well get frustrated by the confusion and call your competitors. What\u2019s even worse is that Google, Bing and all the other search engines can penalize you for these conflicting listings by ranking your competitors above you. (Like your potential customers, they hate<\/em> it when your business listings are inconsistent!)<\/p>\n

What happens is search engines like Google scan the web for all kinds of data on your business, including contact information, your web address and business name. These are also known as citations<\/a>. They then compare that information to other data sources, including some you may not have considered (like government entities). If Google or another search engine finds your business information isn\u2019t consistent, you stand a good chance of suffering in its search engine results rankings. That wouldn\u2019t be good for your business, would it? Fortunately \u2026<\/p>\n

You Can Fix Your Business\u2019s Online Data<\/span><\/h3>\n

The first step is to see if you actually have conflicting online information about your business (unfortunately this is likely, as 75% of all U.S. companies suffer from inconsistent data). The easiest way to do this is to go to one of the many online data management services that will run a free report on your business. These reports will tell you if your contact information is consistent throughout the web, and if not, exactly where the inconsistencies are located.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say you do that, and let\u2019s further say you discover that on one directory you have a phone number, and on another directory your phone number\u2019s different. Or maybe you see the addresses don\u2019t match, perhaps from a company move several years ago. Or maybe you spelled out the word \u201cstreet\u201d on one directory, while on another directory it\u2019s abbreviated.<\/p>\n

The obvious answer in any of these cases \u2013 you\u2019d think \u2013 is to simply go to the directory that\u2019s got the wrong information and correct it. While that\u2019s not a bad idea, you have to do this a certain way or you\u2019ll be wasting your time \u2013\u00a0because this effort can be time-consuming. In fact, it typically takes about 10 minutes to update each directory listing for your business. And since there are about 50 main directories online, that time can really add up. Let\u2019s say you do updates on all 50. That\u2019s 500 minutes \u2013 about 8.3 hours! But here\u2019s the worst part \u2026<\/p>\n

Those Bad Directory Listings Can Pop Up Again Like Whack-a-Mole<\/span><\/h3>\n

Despite spending hours correcting your business information on the web, that bad data can pop right back up again<\/a>. See, all those directories swap information with each other, which makes it easy for bad data to spread like a virus. And even if you update your business information on every directory out there, bad data can still<\/em> pop up to bite you \u2026 even from the site you personally updated.<\/p>\n

\"\"It\u2019s like playing Whack-a-Mole! That\u2019s because there\u2019s a hierarchy of online repositories for business data, and to fix bad data you must attack them in order of that hierarchy. Local business data aggregators are at the top of the heap. They include InfoGroup, Factual, Acxiom and Neustar Localeze \u2013 the four main aggregators in the U.S. All of them use software to combine business information from different online sources for reuse and resale.<\/p>\n

So, if the data they have for your business isn\u2019t accurate, an authoritative directory like Yelp or Yahoo can actually swap out the correct data you spent all that time inputting and replace it with old, incorrect information. And, lesser directory sites like Yellowpages.com or CitySearch, can get bad data from these higher-level directories.<\/p>\n

Therefore, your first step is to go to the four business data aggregators<\/a> and update your information there. This will take about 20 minutes per aggregator, so it\u2019ll cost you about 80 minutes of your time. But, unlike most directories, it will cost you money as well \u2013 $297 for Neustar Localeze, for example. So let\u2019s say you went through all that time and money, you\u2019d be home free, right? Not quite. There\u2019s one more thing to consider \u2026<\/p>\n

You Should Track All Aggregators and Directories to Ensure Your Online Data Stays Correct<\/span><\/h3>\n

Even though you went through all this work to update your contact information on all these directories, there\u2019s still<\/em> a chance bad data could pop back up again. That\u2019s because sometimes a data aggregator finds conflicting information about you from a different source \u2026 which in turn means that bad data could resurface on sites within that aggregator\u2019s network.<\/p>\n

The only way to keep that from happening \u2013 or minimize the odds of that happening \u2013 is to periodically revisit your aggregator listings to make sure they remain accurate. Of course, you could hire a data management service to do that for you. And while that will cost you a little money, you\u2019ll get peace of mind knowing that your listings are being monitored and updated as needed. That way you can concentrate on growing your business.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s one final thought. Many data management services will also submit your information to a slew of other little known directories as part of their overall fee. At last count, there were over 1,600 of them in the U.S. Being listed in them all can\u2019t help but make more people aware of your business. And isn\u2019t that what you want?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine you\u2019ve just won $1 million from Publishers Clearing House, and now they want to arrange a time to give you a giant check on national TV. Too bad they had your phone number wrong and confirmed it with bad online data \u2026 so now someone else gets this life-changing prize. Prevent Online Data Conflict … Read moreHow to Prevent Online Data Conflict from Ruining Your Business<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7435,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[119,39,51,90,120,40,41,2,42,44],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fixmyinfo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/FMI-maps-and-logo.png","yoast_head":"\nHow to Prevent Online Data Conflict from Ruining Your Business -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"local search, listings, seo, online marketing, fix listing, add listing, nap, google local, yahoo local, find business\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fixmyinfo.com\/prevent-online-data-conflict-ruining-business\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Prevent Online Data Conflict from Ruining Your Business -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"local search, listings, seo, online marketing, fix listing, add listing, nap, google local, yahoo local, find business\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/fixmyinfo.com\/prevent-online-data-conflict-ruining-business\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FixMyInfo - 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