Local Site Submit
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Just wanted to see if anyone had any experience with Local Site Submit.
I'd be particularly interested with experiences from the agency/reseller side of things.
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It looks like just the thing google does not like
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In what sense? This isn't 'directory submission' in the classic sense where it's a service that submits your site to low quality web directories. This is a Local SEO service, so it's not so much about submitting a website as it is about building a citation.
Maybe I'm not reading between the lines enough with what they're actually offering, but I'd just like to hear any specific concerns about this service.
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It's paid links, they are not natural.
One day if not already, google will work out their methods and find all that have been using it and dismiss the links and probably give you a un-natural link penalty
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I think get yourself/your business submitted in search engines, local directories, aggregators and other 411 directories is not at all a bad idea and if what they are say is what they really do then i don’t think there is much problem with that...
But submitting the business is not the end of the game you have to make their embassies up and running...like drive clients to get reviews and response to reviews. Before start working (if they are ethical) you should know how you are going to manage many different embassies and if you can’t try to be on less review and yellow pages websites (yelp is important) and get reviews from clients about your business...
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It looks like a product similar to ExpressUpdate or Localeze or Axiom.
I actually suspect that this site is simply reselling one or more of these products, which is fine. These products are all meant to be resold.
These products are all good, effective ways to manage your local search data. They take your data, sanitize it, and make sure it's exactly the same across hundreds of websites, which is exactly what you need for decent local search rankings, and a Google Map icon.
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This looks like just another Local Search solution, like ExpressUpdate, Localeze, or Axiom. I think it's fine.
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hundreds of links overnight, all with exactly the same sanitized data. This does not sound very natural to me. Why would google want to give value to such methods?
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The vast majority of the sites they're submitting to use redirected or nofollowed links. Also, the vast majority of sites they're submitting to are free to go sign up for yourself, and place a link on. The reason you're paying them is not for the listing or the link, its for them to sanitize your data, and go get the listing for you with that sanitized data. It's a real time saver.
I could be wrong, but I wouldn't call Local Search products like this a Link Building product.
If it's anything like ExpressUpdate or Localeze, it's not actually happening over night. It takes about 60 days for your data to get sanitized and pushed.
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If i were a serch engine, i would see such a pattern and practise as trying to game the system.
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Hi Fidelity,
I would love to be able to give you a first-hand experience reply on this, but I've never used Local Site Submit. I did put your question to a few colleagues in Local and received one response from a pro I trust who had used this service a year ago and then switched away because, though he found the pricing to be very good, he found the process 'messy'. He wasn't more specific than this, but at least I was able to track down one person who had actually used the service. Do understand, this is just one agency's experience and it was a year ago, so things may have improved since then.
I've taken a look at the company's main page of offerings. To my eyes, they are offering more than many other mere directory submission sites, including social media and video promotion. They also appear to be guaranteeing inclusion in DMOZ, which I find quite unusual. They also state that the submission is manual rather than automated, so again, that's not exactly across-the-board identical to what some other local submission services offer. All of these things look like they could be very positive. Their execution is what would prove the worth of the service.
Two things which I noticed which did give me a little pause:
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I do not see a mention in the copy about checking for existent listings. This is important in any listing service, as otherwise, their work will create duplicates which will just be a big headache. Maybe they do this, but I didn't see it mentioned, at a glance.
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I wonder what this is:
Extra citations via our private network of Web 2.0 sites
Now, call me overly-sensitive, but that language is reminiscent of the way link farming is often described. You don't ever really want to be part of a web of interlinking anything. This is the one point I would want to be absolutely clear on before signing up for anything. As you probably know, link farms are not approved by Google's policies and are typically eventually punished, so be careful on that score.
Unfortunately, without having tried this myself, as I've said, I can't say, "this was awesome" or "this was lacking". And, what one Local SEO loves, another may hate, so your most authentic route for proving the worth of this service is actually going to be trying it for yourself. It might work great for your agency. I would say, call the company and do be extra careful with finding out what is meant by my point #2, and do discover their policy on point #1 as well.
Hope my reply has been at least a little helpful. Good luck!
Miriam
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Very nice analysis and feedback. I agree with Alan's assessment but would love to be proven wrong.
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Hi Miriam,
Thanks. That was very thorough. I did have some of the same concerns, particularly about their network of sites. I'd love to be able to work with them on just certain services. The video for example, I don't need. My clients don't need. It appears as though they put together a cheap montage video that in my opinion has little value. Personally, I'd want to handle setting up a Google+ Local listing for clients as well, but manual submission to dozens of local directories is where it gets tedious and takes up time. That's all I really want them for.
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Whether they submit to directories manually or automatically is not a consideration. You must be absolutely sure each directory complies with Google's Guidelines or the link will likely be devalued at best, or lead to a penalty / Penguin issue at worse.
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Hi Again Fidelityim,
Well, you can ask if they do an a la carte service. If not, perhaps you'll need to go with a different company that offers just the services you want. I'm glad if my reply was helpful in pointing out some things to consider!
Miriam
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I don't want to seem harsh, but you should brush up on your Local Search knowledge. It's not quite the same as SEO. Local Search is almost entirely about having exactly the same NAP(Name, Address, Phone Number) across hundreds of websites.
Google crawls those hundreds of websites. If your businesses' information is the same across all of them, Local Search data gets more accurate.
Google WANTS you to have uniform information across the web. They WANT to have a high quality Local Search product(Google Maps).
Yes, it may seem more "natural" to have an invalid, year old, phone number, on some websites, but that doesn't make it a good thing, and Google doesn't want you to have that, either.
ExpressUpdate, Localeze, and Axiom simply take your data, sanitize it, and push it across the web. In most cases, your business probably already has a listing with a nofollowed link on all of the websites they're pushing data to. The point of Local Search products isn't to get the link. The point is uniform data.
I don't know about the product that the OP posted, but it certainly sounds similar, although it looks like these guys will sell you other SEO services, too.
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Alan can expand on what he meant, but in many situations things like "blast to web 2.0 sites" is cause for concern. Citations being exactly the same are certainly desirable, but it may be some of the other parts of the package that were causes for concern.
On this page about How do Citations Work http://www.localsitesubmit.com/blog/how-do-citations-work it's stated "In addition we place links on all these sites so that your business will gain over a hundred inbound links to your site."
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Ok, yes, that looks bad. I wouldn't buy that.
Other Local Search solutions, like ExpressUpdate, Axiom, Localeze, etc. are not doing that kind of thing.
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Three years later, any updates on this software?
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Hi Jason,
While I don't know anything additional about the business in question since this thread was first started, there are many more options these days for citation services. Have you considered Moz Local, Whitespark, BrightLocal or some of the other popular services that exist today for this?
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