Does MerchantCircle.com have any SEO benefit?

[CertifiedSEO]

We have created accounts for several of our clients at www.MerchantCircle.com directory  and created blogs, coupons, etc for them but we did not get any single click or benefit from merchantcircle.com at all.  We wasted a lot of time and also monthly membership fees.

I really would like to hear your experiences.

Did you have any positive results from merchantcircle.com ?

Did they lose their importance after Panda update?

Their MOZrank also shows ZERO and we are considering cancelling our accounts with them.

Thanks for your advice and help,

Lewis

[RyanKent]

I have no personal experience with them but did notice two things when I examined their site.

Their MOZrank also shows ZERO

For their home page I see their Domain Moz Rank 6.57 and Page Moz Rang 5.13. Perhaps your tool didn't load properly?

One thing that bothers me about their site is their BBB badge should be a clickable image. I checked the BBB site and they are accredited but they also show a lawsuit settled last year for $900k along with 150 complaints closed in the last 12 months.

[IamJustinM]

It used to be that your merchant circle listing had a lot of potential to quickly rank organically and drive phone calls and leads directly for keyword +city name queries. There would rarely be any click-throughs to my client's websites though. I just checked a clients analytics from the past few years and they got grand total of 22 clicks since 2008 (22 out of 25,000+ referring sites clicks). However, I do know from phone tracking that we were doing at the time that they received at least 5-10 calls a month from their merchant circle listing. Things have changed though. Merchant Circle listings don't rank like they used to. You used to be able to rank them just by "connecting" with all the nearby businesses, but now you have to put some serious effort in. It's not just because of Panda, it's also because there simply isn't much real estate on the front page for a profile page listing anymore.  IMHO, they're little more than a good citation these days. I think the time and money is better spent elsewhere.

[stephenfishman]

$900K! That's impressive.

[CertifiedSEO]

thanks for your  comments.  We have not received any single benefit using merchantcircle.com  and cancelled all of our accounts.   it was a waste of time and money.

[theideapeople]

I have used, and still use, MC for a part of our Internet marketing plan for each of our clients. The MC listing does aide in boosting page 2 and page 3 rankings. I too have noticed a drastic decline in MC total aide in page 1 rankings...especially since they were sold! I think MC still helps for service-based listings when used as a City+ name application.

[CertifiedSEO]

we tried MC for 5-6 clients and we spent a lot of time writing blogs, coupons etc.  and spent a lot of time & money, but we did not get any single benefit from merchantcircle.com.  it was totally a waste of time and money.