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Hi Ira! Mike Blumenthal wrote about this same question at LocalU in 2014. See here. The discussion in the comments there is quite good.

Hi Ira, Yes, I think if you can go through a service that manages YP listings, it might be worth it. I see you've started a new thread about Synup. Popping over there.

Hi Ira, I was curious what your thoughts were about Synup? I am thinking about signing up and was curious how your experience was. Thanks, Errick

I think that if you want to call this vendor dishonest you need to delve deeply into how the Reviewability service works, learn enough about it that any reasonable person would consider you to be an expert on how their system works, and then come to a conclusion that is firm enough to present in court. Many review services allow vendors to contest reviews, place reviews on hold while disputes are being settled, hand-pick the reviews that they will display on their website, show only reviews above a certain score, and more.  These are frequently-employed practices that any vendor can adopt - if they subscribe to a review service or not. It is always good to back your clients when you have solid information.  In many instances, weasel hunts are best turned over to attorneys.

Hi Toby, if you mean that if this traffic has an influence on search ranking, it doesn't, in fact, google doesn't use any data from Google Analytics as a ranking factor. Here is an explanation from Matt Cutts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgBw9tbAQhU And if you think about it, it makes sense since even a lot of people uses GA not everyone does so it wouldn't be fair.

Agreed. We have always found the best way to get more reviews is to tactfully ask for them via social or other channels and have not seen a correlation between advertising on the platforms and reviews.

Hi Ira, People are definitely using it. I know, because I keep having the gut reaction of, "Oh, no, business title spam!" and then having to remind myself that Google now allows this Haha. But, it may not have had such a very observable impact on rankings that would cause people to write about it.

Thanks for clarifying things.   The fact that Google is not an actual partner, despite the fact that you use them as an option validate listings, seems to be the key here.   We'll try it the way you suggest, manually changing after validation (in the few situations where the client insists, or there are valid reasons for adding the level of detail).

Hi Ira, Google's Local Business Information quality guidelines offer the best guidance on naming: Business Name: Your title should reflect your business’s real-world title. In addition to your business’s real-world title, you may include a single descriptor that helps customers locate your business or understand what your business offers. Marketing taglines, phone numbers, store codes, or URLs are not valid descriptors. Examples of acceptable titles with descriptors (in italics for demonstration purposes) are "Starbucks Downtown" or "Joe’s Pizza Delivery"_. _Examples that would not be accepted would be "#1 Seattle Plumbing", "Joe’s Pizza Best Delivery" or "Joe’s Pizza Restaurant Dallas". See: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en Hope this helps!

Thanks.   I submitted a feature request: https://seomoz.zendesk.com/entries/49105990-Make-email-address-an-optional-field-for-Moz-Local

Hey Ira, Thanks for the question. Unfortunately we're unable to say which services utilize an API. In general you can expect them all to update over 1-4 weeks. For a bonus link, here's the Q&A we've got setup exclusively for local SEO: http://moz.com/community/q/local-strategy Thanks! Joel.

If inherited these sites I would probably make unique location pages on the primary domain and do a 301 redirect of the microsites to their respective pages on the main domain. Before I did this I would first look at current rankings and if these sites are all showing kickass rankings, conversions and performing superbly then I would allow them to run "as is" until performance changed.  In that case I would improve the duplicate pages, making them unique and focused on services offered in their respective community.