Why does it take so long for citations to get listed?

[KempRugeLawGroup]

I understand that several citation places take over a month to get listed, but I just don't understand why. Granted, there's nothing I can do about it, but I'm just curious what the hold up is based on.

Thanks,

Ruben

[WilliamKammer]

From what I've heard when I talk to these citation places, there are two different kinds.

1. A company that collection citations and then hands them off to large databases that are controlled by others, and then those people will distribute the citations through there affiliates. This is the much longer, much cheaper, kind of citation company. Moz Local does this.

2. A company that has it's own direct relationships with the citation sites, and doesn't use third-party databases or companies as a middle-man. This is more expensive (10x or so), but faster. Yext falls into this category.

So, you are correct. There is nothing you can do to speed it up, the citations are most likely in the hands of those large databases who are distributing to affiliates.

[KempRugeLawGroup]

Yeah, Yext is incredibly expensive. I actually wondered why Moz Local was so much cheaper. I guess this is why.

What about adding the listings yourself? Right now, I'm doing that for anyone Moz Local doesn't do. I'm guess that will end up being the slowest of the three, but I'm not sure.

• Best,

Ruben

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Ruben,

This is from 2012, but is still highly applicable:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/09/26/infographic-citations-time-to-live/

Thought you might like to take a peek at that.

[WilliamKammer]

Adding listings yourself isn't the slowest (if you don't count the time you spent doing them), since there are time delays with each entity that deals with the data.

If you have a handful of citations you want to get up faster than with a service, doing them manually is an option.

[Travis_Bailey]

From what I've seen, Moz Local is pretty fast - especially for the price. I'm aggressive and I claim listings as fast as I can. But that's just me, making the green bar go higher.

The main thing is avoiding pain points. Acxiom is a big pain point. It requires a lot of cooperation you aren't likely to get from a client. I make them busy, they don't have much time for me.

From my tests, just add 30 days to your campaign. In many instances, especially if you claim the big three manually, that's not a whole lot of time.

[KempRugeLawGroup]

30 days isn't bad. I'm just hoping it's not much longer that. I appreciate you sharing your tests.

Best,

Ruben