What's the deal with Yext?
-
Ok, the "SEO" in me says don't sign my clients up for this. But their ads are EVERYWHERE. All the time. Is this bad/good? thoughts? Have you ever used Yext? I can't find a review online that I don't think is biased. Should I trust my gut on this one and pass?
-
Hi Courtney,
I support the sound conclusion you've reached. As the marketer on the project, hands-on nearly always beats automation. Whitespark's service is terrific and if you're using that and hand building citations for your clients, they have an edge over other companies who have taken the automated route, simply because someone (read: you) has maximum control over their citation profile. Great responses on this thread.
-
All good answers. It is relieving to know that my doubt in Yext could be substantiated by other valued members here. Sounds like building them myself (I use Whitesparks) is the way to go. But - it is time consuming. If I need a quick fix, I could do Yext, but I will not count on it for long term or consistency. Using it to "brainstorm" is a great idea! Thanks for the info about their advertising as well Patrick. That sure makes sense!
-
Hi Courtney,
Kudos to you in not trusting everything you read online Reviews can always be skewed, so asking around has been what I do a lot of as well. Thanks for posing the question.
Let me answer your comment about seeing their Yext ads everywhere... You see them everywhere because they are heavy remarketers. So, when you visit their website and browsed around, they dumped a cookie on your browser, essentially tracking you and wherever their remarketing campaign could place an ad to bring you back to their site with an ad graphic, they will make sure you see it. Big money spent on that type of online marketing! If you delete your cookies, then Bye Bye to their ads. Or you could disable cookies on your browser altogether if you wanted.
We've used Yext before and referred clients to them or helped clients go through their service. There were issues with some clients and others went flawlessly. It is a time saver for sure, but know it's automated and their support lacks big time. There are resources out there to find the best, most relevant directories and sites which Yext and other services like them build profiles for links, so create that link in XLS and work on them manually, unless you have a ton of clients who need listings created. Keep track of all logins in the XLS file for each client so if they ever move, you can provide to them or have easy access to info if things need updated. Yext won't make updates unless you are a paying customer as well and things tended to take a long time for those updates to occur. Same for UBL out of Charlotte... I knew some people who worked for them when I started my business.
Hope this was helpful and a solid answer to help you make a decision! - Patrick
-
I agree with Oleg. In theroy it's a great tool, but we've seen issues with it as well. It sometimes doesn't always work and it somtimes says things are "broken" when in fact the listings are correct.
What we suggest is that you use it as a "brain storming" tool for where you should build links to your local listings.
-
Manual > Yext BUT Yext take a lot less management/time/effort and will be effective in ranking small businesses.
So if you have the time and resources to hire and manage an employee/outsourcer to manually submit, claim, verify and update your listings - do that.
Yext pretty much does that but all automated through a backend. You enter your business info and Yext submits/updates the listings on all the sites (I don't know whether they have outsourcers doing it on their end or its all coded). I've found that changes take longer to update with Yext and isn't as flexible.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Drastic surge of link spam in Webmaster Tools' Link Profile
Hello all I am trying to get some insights/advice on a recent as well as drastic increase in link spam within my Webmaster Tools' Link Profile. Before I get into more detail, I would like to point out, that I did find some relevant MOZ community posts addressing this type of issue. However, my link spam situation may have to be approached from a different angle, as it concerns two sites at the same time and somewhat in the same way. Basically, starting in July 2017, from one day to the other, a multitude of domains (50+) is generating link spam (at least 200 links a month and counting) and to cut a long story short, I believe the sites are hacked. This is because most of the domain names sound legit and load the homepage, but all the sub-pages linking to my site contain "adult" gibberish. In addition, it is interesting to see, that each sub-page follows the same pattern, scraping content from my homepage including the on-page links - that generate the spammy backlinks to my sites - while inserting the adult gibberish in between (basically it's all just text and looks like as if a bot is at work). Therefore, it's not like my link is being inserted "specifically" into pages or to spam me with the same anchor text over and over. So, I am not sure what kind of link spam this really is (or the purpose of it). Some more background information: As mentioned above, this link spam (attack?) is affecting two of my sites and it started off pretty much simultaneously (in addition, the sites focus on a competitive niche). The interesting detail is, that one site suffered a manual penalty years ago, which has been lifted (a disavowal file exists and no further link building campaigns have been undertaken after the cleanup), while the other site has never seen any link building efforts - it is clean, yet the same type of spam is flooding that websites' link profile too. In the webmaster forums the overall opinion is, that Google ignores web spam. All well. However, I am still concerned, that the dozens of spammy links pointing to the website "with a history" may pose a risk (more spam on a daily basis on both sites though). At the same time I wonder, why the other "clean" site is facing the same issue. The clean sites' rankings do not appear to be impacted, while the other website has seen some drops, but I am still observing the situation. Therefore, should I be concerned for both sites or even start an endless disavowal campaign on the site with a history? PS: This MOZ article appears to advice so: https://moz.com/blog/do-we-still-need-to-disavow-penguin "In most cases, sites that have a history of collecting unnatural links tend to continue to collect them. If this is the case for you, then it’s best to disavow those on a regular basis (either monthly or quarterly) so that you can avoid getting another manual action." What is your opinion? Sorry for the long post and many thanks in advance for any help/insight.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Hermski0 -
'SEO Footers'
We have an internal debate going on right now about the use of a link list of SEO pages in the footer. My stance is that they serve no purpose to people (heatmaps consistently show near zero activity), therefore they shouldn't be used. I believe that if something on a website is user-facing, then it should also beneficial to a user - not solely there for bots. There are much better ways to get bots to those pages, and for those people who didn't enter through an SEO page, internal linking where appropriate will be much more effective at getting them there. However, I have some opposition to this theory and wanted to get some community feedback on the topic. Anyone have thoughts, experience, or data to share on this subject?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | LoganRay1 -
On the use of Disavow tool / Have I done it correctly, or what's wrong with my perception?
On a site I used GSA search engine ranker. Now, I got good links out of it. But, also got 4900 links from one domain. And, I thought according to ahrefs. One link from the one domain is equal to 4900 links from one domain. So, I downloaded links those 4900 and added 4899 links to disavow tool. To disavow, to keep my site stable at rankings and safe from any future penalty. Is that a correct way to try disavow tool? The site rankings are as it is.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AMTrends0 -
Why did this fabric site disappear for "fabric" and why can't we get it back?
Beverlys.com used to rank on the first page for "fabric." I'm trying to get the date of their demise, but don't have it yet so I can't pinpoint what Google update might have killed them but I can guess. In doing a backlink analysis, there were hundreds of poor quality, toxic sites pointing to them. We have carefully gone through them all and submitted a disavow request. They are now on page 9 from nowhere to be found a week ago. But, of course, that's not good enough. They are on page 2 for "fabric online" and "quilt fabric." So Google doesn't completely hate them. But doesn't love them enough even for those terms. Any suggestions? They are rebuilding the site to use a different ecommerce platform with new content and new structure. They will also be incorporating the blog within the site and I've advised them on many other ways to attract traffic and backlinks. That's coming. But for now, any suggestions and help will be much appreciated. Something has got to be holding them back for that one gem of a keyword. Also, I would like to know what experiences others have had with the disavow request form. Does Google absolutely hold you to making every attempt you can at getting those links removed? ANd how does it know? No one responds so it seems to be such a waste of time. And many now actually charge to remove your links. Thoughts? Thanks everyone!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | katandmouse0 -
How will Google deal with the crosslinks for my multiple domain site
Hi, I can't find any good answer to this question so I thought, why not ask Moz.com ;-)! I have a site, let's call it webshop.xx For a few languages/markets, Deutsch, Dutch & Belgian, English, French. I use a different TLD with a different IP for each of these languages, so I'll end up with: webshop.de, webshop.nl, webshop.be, webshop.co.uk, webshop.com & webshop.fr They all link to eachother and every subpage that is translated from the other site gets a link as well from the other languages, so: webshop.com/stuff links to webshop.de/stuff My main website, webshop.com gets links from every other of these domain which Open Site Explorer as well as Majestic SEO sees as an external link. (this is happening) My question. How will Google deal in the long-run with the crosslinks coming from these domains? some guesses I made: I get full external links juice (content is translated so unique?) I get a bit of the juice of an external link They are actually seen as internal links I'll get a penalty Thanks in advance guys!!!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | pimarketing0 -
"Unnatural Linking" Warning/Penalty - Anyone's company help with overcoming this?
I have a few sites where I didn't manage the quality of my vendors and now am staring at some GWT warnings for unnatural linking. I'm assuming a penalty is coming down the pipe and unfortunately these aren't my sites so looking to get on the ball with unwinding anything we can as soon as possible. Does anyone's company have experience or could pass along a reference to another company who successfully dealt with these issues? A few items coming to mind include solid and speedy processes to removing offending links, and properly dealing with the resubmission request?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | b2bmarketer0 -
Is it negative to put a backlink into the footer's website of our clients ?
Hello there ! Everything is in the subject of this post but here is the context : we are a web agency and we, among others, build websites for our clients (most of them are shops). Until now, we put a link in their footer, like "developped by MyWebShop". But we don't know if it is bad or not. With only one website we can have like hundred of backlinks at once, but is it good for SEO or not ? Will Google penalize us thinking that is blackhat practices ? Is it better to put our link in the "legal notices" or "disclaimer" part of the websites ? What is the best practice for a lasting SEO ? I hope you understand my question, Thnak you in advance !
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mywebshop0 -
Does Google Penalize for Managing multiple Google Places from the same IP Address? Can you manage from same google account or separate? Or does it matter since it's created from the same IP?
I manage a number of client's Google Places from the same IP and heard this is not a good thing. Are there Do's and Don'ts when managing multiple Google Places? Create separate google accounts for each or can you use the same account?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Souk0