About a year ago I wrapped up a simple test on Moz Local (the paid version): do Moz Local-controlled listings disappear if you cancel? No, from what I can tell. I had tracked the listings for for an ex-client, and 3 months after cancelling they were still up.
I did that post in October of 2016. Since then, some commentators on that post and other astute people have asked me, “Where are they now?”
Here’s a snapshot of how they looked a little over a year ago, 3 months after cancelling:
And here’s a snapshot of the listings for the same business now, almost 15 months after cancelling:
None of the important listings has disappeared in the past year, from what I can see.
In the name of “trust but verify,” I just checked those listing manually. You might notice the gray bar on the left, representing important InfoGroup. Turns out that listing IS up still (that discrepancy between the 2016 and 2017 snapshots is just a hiccup on Moz’s end). The unimportant HotFrog listing may have disappeared, though.
What’s interesting is that some of the “enhanced data” that Darren Shaw in his comment thought might get stripped out did in fact seem to disappear into the ether. The LocalEze and SuperPages listings no longer display the business’s website URL. Though I’m interested to know whether those listings or other listings decay a little more 2 or 3 years after the fact, I probably won’t do another follow-up post on it. I don’t want this to become like the 14th KISS “Farewell” tour.
It seems to be as Jim Stob in his comments said: accurate listings for valid businesses stick around. Their shelf life is at least that of Chef Boyardee, and perhaps even equal to that of a Slim Jim.
Moz Local is a good service in many cases, particularly for new businesses or new locations of a business. It’s a low-cost and low-effort way to thin the herd of listings you need to wrangle. If your listings on sites in Moz’s network went up (or got fixed) without much trouble, I suggest keeping it around.
Still, if for whatever reason you cancel it, your listings should stay up – though you should reclaim those listings manually and re-add any additional info (e.g. your site URL) that might have gone missing.
Any questions? First-hand experience with cancelling? Leave a comment!
It would be interesting to do this same study with Yext, or maybe you have?
Nyagoslav at Whitespark did a great case-study on that last year:
https://whitespark.ca/blog/what-happens-when-you-cancel-yext/
Wow Phil, i find this very interesting! and yes i i am going to check that out right away.
Very Interesting. Do you have a Yext test case?
I do not, but Whitespark does:
https://whitespark.ca/blog/what-happens-when-you-cancel-yext/
(As mentioned in previous comment.)
Exactly one month after canceling my Moz Local subscription that I have had since Oct 16, 2014:
Factual, Localeze and Hotfrog are all showing “not listed”.
Factual and Hotfrog appear to still be there after a manual search,
Localeze shows “This listing is closed or has been removed.”
My score&accuracy ratings dropped from 96% to 74%…….after one month.
Anyone care to chime in on an alternative?…Bright? synup?…not a big fan of Yext but hate to reward Moz by signing back up after such a quick “closed or has been removed”
Interesting, Hunter. I’ve got many questions, but just to keep it to a short list for now:
1. Do you know for a fact you had a LocalEze listing via Moz in the first place? (Though that’s probably the most problem-free site in Moz’s network, strange things can happen.)
2. You didn’t change any basic business info, correct?
3. You don’t have duplicates on LocalEze, correct?
4. Are ExpressUpdate.com (AKA InfoGroup) and MyBusinessListingManager.com (AKA Acxiom) still up?
I’m sure other people here would be interested to hear, but feel free to email me (phil @ localvisibilitysystem dot com) if that’s preferable.
1. Yes, I am positive that I had the listing, and positive it was “managed” by Moz.
2. The ONLY time I changed ANY info after my initial listing in Oct 2014 was in January 2016. A minor change 10 months before I canceled.
3. I’ve checked for dupes on Localeze, by name, partial name, phone and zip code, I do not believe there are any duplicates.
4. ExpressUpdate and Acxiom are still up.
5. As of today 11/18/17 a detailed search on Localeze now shows “not found”
6. Facebook is showing as gone but that is fairly regular for it to pop in and out on the dashboard. A manual search shows it is still live.
7. Other small changes have happened, a few pics disappeared, a couple duplicates showed up.
All in all I didn’t make a copy of what everything looked like when I started but I believe everything just reverted back to what it was when I started.
Thanks, Hunter. You anticipated my big question: “what were your listings like before?” Guess there’s no way to know in this case.
I’m not surprised that those duplicates would pop back up post-cancellation, though.
Facebook isn’t part of Moz’s network, FYI. It only ties into Moz Local in the sense that you need a FB or GMB page with the business info you want Moz to propagate.
To be fair to Moz, and after my “this was my experience after canceling” post seemed to turn into a Moz bashing (by me) I thought that I would update…..
I still believe most listings just reverted back to their pre-Moz condition, and rather quickly.
Local rankings took a dip shortly after I canceled, the inconsistencies showed up and the Localeze disappeared.
WHAT DID I DO?
After considering all the options that I could find including correcting/re-claiming and monitoring the citations and weighing the time and costs involved…….
I came to the same conclusion that I had originally, soo….
I marched my frustrated butt right back over to Moz.com and signed back up for their service.
While the service isn’t the total answer for local citation building, the “extras” you build manually won’t mean much if the biggies go wrong or down.
Since the site that I was using their service for HomelinkCincinnati.com is strictly a local corporate housing business, showing up highly and often in the local packs is crucial. My little experiment in saving around $100/yr may have cost several $1000……
As soon as I re-upped my listings were quickly corrected and my local rankings have come back almost as quickly.
All in all it’s tough to beat what they do for the cost. I have to say that the ROI on their service….or one like it if it works well is a good one.
Hunter