Warning - directory listing scam
We were recently notified by a potential scam involving a New Zealand based directory service which we feel is important enough to make people aware of.
Remember "Buyer Beware"
It seems a NZ On Line Business directory have placed people in their directory listings without requests or approval from the "advertiser", they subsequently call on the advertiser and do a hard sell to get the listing renewed, although the listing was never requested in the first place, The hard sell also involves offering a "special" price (e.g. $97) for something they say they would normally charge $400 for. Well if everyone is getting the same offer always - it can't be a special.
They may say they provided XXX number of referrals in the last year - if they do ask them to validate this and also compare it with your own sites logs to see if you have actually received referrals from their directory. We do note that many of their listings do not have email or website links so how could they be referring visitors to the advertised site? (you couldn't identify those that are phone referrals). Some of their listings have incorrect or out dated information - so it will be interesting to note where they sourced their information from.
You also have to check the value of the directory - if you can't find them with a basic google search for NZ on line business directory - there can not be many people finding their site and hence using their directory.
For more information:
- visit this blog,
- or read this article in the NZ Herald,
- or 1st Sept 2008 TV One News item and TVNZ Ondemand
For any listing your are considering you need to consider the ROI, and to find out this ROI you need from the directory service a report on what referrals they are presenting you. This can be checked against your own web site activity reports.
As part of our SEO service we do automatically list in a number of free directory services mainly NZ based which we feel will improve your sites ranking.
Recommendation:
Don't list (in particular pay for listings) with on line business directories unless you have verified their quality of their service and product. Normally any listing / links (from a good site) to your site is good practise and helps improve ranking with google etc. However in this case due to the underhanded tactics employed and poor value of the site, we won't recommend listing on particular sites.
In particular we recommend don't pay for a listing in NBO "National Business On Line" or "Searcha" or a number of other directories which we are willingly to highlight.
Talk to us and we are happy to advise on any directory listings you are considering and in particular provide details of those you shouldn't list on.
