Years ago, I used to claim a ton of local directories for businesses, like Superpages, Local, Yellowpages and so on. The alternative to Yext was Moz. What would you recommend today? Doing it yourself or going with firms like Yext or Moz? And why?
Yext - Good stuff or not worth the money?
- Thread starter SenseiSteve
- Start date
Touchy subject 
If you have the time, do it yourself. Claim at the various places and you'll be better off in the long run.
If you are updating things regularly, like a restaurant menu, or coupons, or things of that nature, having Yext is awesome as once you update, they put that out to their owned network of 60+ directories.
And suddenly your 60+ places all act as ONE, and the value of those greatly decrease as the entire system is automated. You'll spend $50-70/month on Yext (payable as an annual fee), but once you cancel your account at Yext, they remove the listings too.
I personally have never used Moz's listing service before, so I can't comment on their setup.
We have been a Yext partner for about 6 years, but terminated our relationship at the end of 2019 due to low SEO value for spend of money. We were also disappointed in their reports which said "everything is updated" but when you looked, several were not updated. After contacting support, I was informed that the automated link between several places has been broken for over a year, and it's a manual task by a staff member (but only when a user notices an issue and opens a ticket). All that time, people think things are up to date, and come to find out, it's not. That was the last straw for us.
We have gone all the way back to old school methods. Open accounts at the various TOP directories, store the username and password so we can update things in the future. We also submit to the main data aggregator, and that gets us in a good chunk of places too.
If you have the time, do it yourself. If you don't have the time, hire someone to do it - or outsource to a place for manual creation. This is contingent on things not needing to be updated every few months (which can be time consuming to upload new info/hours/pictures). If you have regularly changing hours, Yext is a good option, just be sure to verify at each of their directory places so you know the job was actually done (by the time you do that, you may as well have done it manually and been sure to begin with).
If you have the time, do it yourself. Claim at the various places and you'll be better off in the long run.
If you are updating things regularly, like a restaurant menu, or coupons, or things of that nature, having Yext is awesome as once you update, they put that out to their owned network of 60+ directories.
And suddenly your 60+ places all act as ONE, and the value of those greatly decrease as the entire system is automated. You'll spend $50-70/month on Yext (payable as an annual fee), but once you cancel your account at Yext, they remove the listings too.
I personally have never used Moz's listing service before, so I can't comment on their setup.
We have been a Yext partner for about 6 years, but terminated our relationship at the end of 2019 due to low SEO value for spend of money. We were also disappointed in their reports which said "everything is updated" but when you looked, several were not updated. After contacting support, I was informed that the automated link between several places has been broken for over a year, and it's a manual task by a staff member (but only when a user notices an issue and opens a ticket). All that time, people think things are up to date, and come to find out, it's not. That was the last straw for us.
We have gone all the way back to old school methods. Open accounts at the various TOP directories, store the username and password so we can update things in the future. We also submit to the main data aggregator, and that gets us in a good chunk of places too.
If you have the time, do it yourself. If you don't have the time, hire someone to do it - or outsource to a place for manual creation. This is contingent on things not needing to be updated every few months (which can be time consuming to upload new info/hours/pictures). If you have regularly changing hours, Yext is a good option, just be sure to verify at each of their directory places so you know the job was actually done (by the time you do that, you may as well have done it manually and been sure to begin with).
I used to believe that as well, but I just looked up their FAQs and came up with this:
When I was doing MOZ, you had to have a Google Plus verification first. I guess that requirement no longer exists. I haven't used MOZ in the last six years.
Yes, the YEXT wording doesn't say that they remove it, but that's essentially what happens. Once the service is cancelled, it takes 30 days for them to remove their control on your listings. Until that time you can't setup with another party or do anything manually as Yext technically owns the listing.
Once they release it, they no longer suppress duplicates and no longer provide the most current up to date information. At that time, your listings with the other places start to degrade and without a new feed, they are removed from the other listings.
So while YEXT does not remove the listings, if they don't provide the constant feed for the listing, then the listing is removed by the other directory provider (which is a YEXT owned partner)
Once they release it, they no longer suppress duplicates and no longer provide the most current up to date information. At that time, your listings with the other places start to degrade and without a new feed, they are removed from the other listings.
So while YEXT does not remove the listings, if they don't provide the constant feed for the listing, then the listing is removed by the other directory provider (which is a YEXT owned partner)
Yes, the YEXT wording doesn't say that they remove it, but that's essentially what happens. Once the service is cancelled, it takes 30 days for them to remove their control on your listings. Until that time you can't setup with another party or do anything manually as Yext technically owns the listing.
Once they release it, they no longer suppress duplicates and no longer provide the most current up to date information. At that time, your listings with the other places start to degrade and without a new feed, they are removed from the other listings.
So while YEXT does not remove the listings, if they don't provide the constant feed for the listing, then the listing is removed by the other directory provider (which is a YEXT owned partner)
Absolutely the insight I was looking for from an expert who used their services for years. Does this mean that YEXT claims the site as a directory provider and when that account is cancelled, the site reverts back to being unclaimed?
Yes, they claim it and then they revert back after the cancellation and a 30 day waiting period. Sometimes they "forget" to release the claim and you have to open a ticket with them and then wait another 30 days. They do everything to keep the sale
But yes, it reverts to unclaimed, and those directories then fetch data via the aggregators, sometimes creating duplicate or out of date information as not every aggregator updates at the same time.
Some directories are only able to be updated using Yext, but their SEO power is minimal. If you stick to the top 10-15 largest directories and the aggregators, often that's more than enough.
But yes, it reverts to unclaimed, and those directories then fetch data via the aggregators, sometimes creating duplicate or out of date information as not every aggregator updates at the same time.
Some directories are only able to be updated using Yext, but their SEO power is minimal. If you stick to the top 10-15 largest directories and the aggregators, often that's more than enough.
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