To understand how relevant local business directory listings, you must have a basic understanding of how local search engines work. Google Places (Maps), Yahoo Local, and Bing Local are the big three local search engines.
Each one of these search engines has its database and encourages people to open an account and post their business listing for free.
What the search engines don't explain very well, however, is that there is more to ranking on search results pages than merely listing your business on the big three search engines.
- Since each of these major search engines wants to provide the most accurate and relevant information possible on search results pages, they do not rely solely on their databases for search results.
- They pull in data from third-party sources, like the Chamber of Commerce, at least every couple of months and compare it to the information they have in their databases.
- If the comparative data doesn't match properly or doesn't exist at all, the search engine thinks the data they have might be wrong or less important and therefore less relevant.
- As a result, your ranking on the results pages can be dramatically affected.