Have you fixed the listing at CityGrid?

David, this is a truly interesting topic, and one that I've been trying to figure out the answer to for some time now. The problem is, as you point out, two-sided. On one side you have Service Magic, which is undoubtedly a very decent lead generator for contractors. On the other side, you have your NAP consistency, which is being disrupted by Service Magic's practices. But it's not that simple. If it was just this, it was going to be very easy to simply go and edit the phone numbers everywhere Service Magic syndicated their listings. Unfortunately, there are two set backs:

1) In many cases you cannot edit the phone numbers. This is either because the website with which the listing was syndicated does not provide such an option, or because the data is property of Service Magic (thus you cannot edit it). The more "fun" of these cases is the second one. For example, when data is going from Service Magic to Insider Pages, the second site clearly marks it as coming from the partner site Service Magic. In this case, you cannot claim or edit any of the information.

2) Once you edit the listings, the information will get re-syndicated, and it will pop up again.

Overall, having wrong NAP even on Service Magic itself, which is a very decent data source for Google (as it seems) in a number of verticals, is already not good. You practically have two choices:

1) Live with it. It is possible that Google might add the call-tracking phone number to the +Local listing, thus the listing will have two main phone numbers. You can actually do it yourself, too, via MapMaker. This is not perfect, but at least you will be "collecting the juice" coming from these citations, and it will be more unlikely that Google will create a duplicate.

2) Abandon Service Magic altogether :)

Hope this helps!

Nyagoslav

@David

What kinds of troubles cropped up?

It is also possible to add the call tracking number as the second number in the Places Dashboard. In fact if you are to keep using it I would do it there and in Mapmaker.

It is obviously somewhat disingenuous of the IAC network to syndicate that number across their properties thus increasing your risk while increasing their gain. I would find that a reason for discontinuing the service. unless the benefit were really significant.

I am curious if you took out an ad at CityGrid for one month (~$320) whether your real number would trump the call tracking number across the network

David - thanks for weighing in. Definitely going to try that out ASAP.

Also great work with Get Listed - the resources you've made available are just phenomenal. Any chance you're bringing Local University to the Baltimore/DC corridor?

Nyagoslav and David, sorry how to add a number to map maker? You mean as community edit you add service magic's phone number as an additional number, then you'd get the additional citation bump?

interesting idea? lot's of business often have two or three numbers floating around for them on the web too (outside of this SM issue) I wonder by adding those numbers too might help?

Also why add via map maker and not just by the 2nd and 3rd phone number options within Google Places...?

Hi Sebastian - is that what's going on here? Noticed this a couple weeks ago on Yellowbot. This is another local contractor that uses
SM. Watch the phone number field closely. http://www.screencast.com/t/M6juddV7u

It is also possible to add the call tracking number as the second number in the Places Dashboard. In fact if you are to keep using it I would do it there and in Mapmaker.

It is obviously somewhat disingenuous of the IAC network to syndicate that number across their properties thus increasing your risk while increasing their gain. I would find that a reason for discontinuing the service.

I am curious if you took out an ad at CityGrid for one month (~$320) whether your real number would trump the call tracking number across the network

@David
I would think that taking an ad out at CityGrid would do a better job of forcing the number to their affiliates than the clean up service. Its not very cheap but it is likely an option.

@ Mike - thanks for the suggestion. May go down that road w/ CityGrid.

It's very telling that Google Places guidelines continue to recommend against use of tracking numbers. From convo with Google representatives at GetListed Local U recently, it seems that the issue of tracking numbers is very low on their list of priorities -- as in, it's not a priority and isn't going to be solved by them for the time being.

That being said, there's a likelihood that their system can fluidly handle alternative numbers in many cases with little or no impact to search rankings. The phone number is not the sole unique identifier for purposes of local rankings -- other citations include simply the name and address of the business, for instance.

I theorize that if a business has a very large amount of citations using the primary local phone number, then having a small number of listings out in the wild with a tracking number is very unlikely to negatively impact rankings. However, it's prudent to frequently audit to see if Google begins showing duplicate listings in the local database which have the tracking/alternative numbers -- if that happens, then those dupe listings are certainly absorbing some dribbles of ranking score which should more properly be rolling up under the primary listing.

I think this is a reasonable/balanced approach. But, it's obvious that the best course of action continues to be to avoid use of tracking numbers where they can get spidered and indexed by Google -- that removes uncertainty from the equation and your time is better spent on further valuable promotion activities as opposed to auditing/policing and corrective activities.

Chris - you make great points, especially the last one about focusing on valuable promotion activities. Now that I have a better understanding of what SM is doing (and how to sidestep them without sabotaging the relationship) we can move forward.

Note to self: Ask future clients if they do or ever have used Service Magic...

I've been making use of a single call tracking number (home service businesses) for more than 3 years across Google, Yahoo & Bing in order to track the aggregate of their combined lead generation. I have yet to have an issue and in general, have very good SERP rankings from high volume category searches. Additionally, many of these local businesses have YP, Citysearch tracking numbers floating in the organic space on those respective publisher platforms. The Service Magic methods are a serious concern. I know many contractors who have had disappointing results due low customer conversion rates, normally paying for low quality leads (also sent to two other competitors). But does their tactic of distributing call tracking across their network platform, adversely affect their organic lead generation?