On Saturday, March 6, 2010 Microsoft Bing’s Local Listing Center stopped accepting new local business listing claiming and updating until their backlog and issues have been resolved.
When visiting the URL https://ssl.bing.com/listings/ListingCenter.aspx the following notice has been mosted:
“Local Listing Center Backlog:
We have received a lot of feedback recently regarding issues with claiming and updating business listings using Bing Local Listing Center. We are actively working on fixing these issues and will closely monitor the progress of clearing out the backlog. We understand that this has been very frustrating for many of you and sincerely apologize for the long delays. Thank you for your patience!
Bing Local Listing Center Team”
What is not as clear is why a couple of sentences further there is the following notice that is actually active and takes you through the “Add new listing” process.
“If you’d like to add a new listing for your own business or for one you represent, click the Add new listing button to get started.”
As far as issues that business owners are having with their Microsoft Bing Local Listing Center we are not entirely sure of those details, however, anyone is free to take a look at the Bing Local Listing Center forums to see the types of frustrations that exist at http://www.bing.com/community/forums/12279.aspx
Local business listings have become a good local business marketing tool for the local business to reach the local consumer through web searches and mobile searches. Afterall, local business listings are showing up before organic results in a regular search at the major search engines.
Unfortunately, not all business owners have come to the realization that they do not have to passively let these interactive web pages exist. There are those business owners that have caught on quickly if they claim and update their local business listing, they can use this as a local marketing tool. To some extent not have to even both with search engine optimization (seo) of their website, but rather put their energy into the local business listing.
In order to make these interactive yellow pages a beneficial local business marketing tool, the first step is to claim the listing before you can update the listing with the business marketing material. This claiming process is partly to blame for the issues Microsoft Bing is encountering with the backlog. Depending upon the website one visits to claim the business listing, there are four methods being employed to verify the authenticity of the claimant
- Postcard in the mail with a Pin code
- Phone call to your business phone number with a pin code
- Manual verification
The Pin Code that is provided is to unlock the local business listing in order to update the information with text copy, keywords, business descriptions, products, services, photos, videos, coupons, and much more. Depending upon the local listing website, some allow you all of these options (e.g. Google) others begin charging a fee for enhanced listing in order to have all this information present to the local consumer through web searches or mobile searches.
The claiming process is very important because if the wrong person gets access to the local business listing for a business they can detract customers to a different location by phone or by website address. Additional damage that can be done includes incorrect information on photos, videos, coupons, and much more. Because consumers are using the local business listings to locate a business, product or service in their immediate area in person, by phone or website, the security around local business listings has to be high priority for any local listing website.
Local business listings started with a basic business directory on the Internet going back over a decade. The process has evolved and matured as social media and mobile devices allowed consumers to start using these interactive yellow pages to post their reviews as well as use them to locate a business, product or service in their local area. There are over 60 local business listing websites on the Internet in five different categories. They include the search engines, social communities, 411 websites (aka yellow page type websites), GPS websites and the age old business directory.
I have discussed Local Business Listing Hijackings and Local Business Listing Brand Security Concerns in previous articles. It is absolutely important to not passively wait for the local listing websites to put the appropriate security in place to claim your listing. The complexity of these local listing websites to put security in place ranges to include not only the obvious claiming process, but many of them allow data to be inserted from other databases on the Internet and I cannot say I am clear there is good security around this later process. If someone wanted to hijack a local business listing, they could just as easily insert the wrong information through a low level business directory that sells its data upstream or inserts its data directly into a higher level local listing website.
Depending whose data source you use, there is an estimated 30 million businesses in the U.S. While the top search engines like Bing, Google and Yahoo have “some” front end security to their process; their API’s make them vulnerable through the back door. Data is provided to their local listings from 3rd party sources including “get listed” services. Additionally, if someone cannot claim a listing easily, the process within these local listing websites allows for additional listings with the same address to be submitted by anyone. While none of these local listing websites have the capacity to take on the claiming process of 100% of all business all at the same time, the recommendation is to start the claiming process regardless of how long it may take and if they get back logged. This is not just a top tier search engine issue either. The claiming process has to be performed through lower tiered local listing websites, as well, in order to insure accurate information that is being passed around the Internet.
Certainly your time resources are limited and Local Business Listing Management Services are provided by SmartFinds Internet Marketing. You will find this to be of great benefit to your time resources and the low cost service may eliminate your yellow page ad costs. Let the experts of over 15 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly and prevent brand security issues from occurring.
