[Build Backlinks Online] A New Version of GetListed.org

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'A New Version of GetListed.org'


Posted by David Mihm

Today, I am excited to announce the release of a new version of GetListed.org.
While no new functionality is included in this update, the team and I hope it
provides a dramatically improved user experience on several fronts.

The best way to get a sense of what's changed is to run a business search for
yourself, but I'll run through a few brief highlights here.


Faster business lookups



GetListed is now waaayyyy faster (that's the technical term used by our
engineers) than it used to be. Previously, lookups averaged around 20 seconds.
We've cut the average response time in half to about 10 seconds, and we'll be
working to make it even faster as we analyze usage of the app and further
optimize our response times. We hope this increased speed provides a big
value-add for those of you who use GetListed in your on-the-spot client
meetings.

More consistent results



Previously, GetListed's Listing Snapshot displayed a composite listing based on
the data points returned by several search engines in our list. This led to
unnecessary confusion among business owners, and made it difficult for some of
our agency users to identify which search engines were returning incorrect
information about clients' listings. It also made tracking Listing Score
progress over time more difficult, since this score was dependent on the order
of results returned by our search engine partners, and this order sometimes
varied week-to-week and month-to-month.

The new version of the site asks users to establish their canonical NAP (Name,
Address, Phone number) information prior to running a full query for a given
business, so that the new Snapshot page and Listing Score are no longer based on
"best guess" composite listings.

Please note: this update means you may see changes in your listing scores,
including for those businesses saved to your Dashboard.We suggest
re-establishing these scores by running your listings through the new site. When
you do, you'll have a fixed data point against which you can measure your
progress over time.

Cleaner Listing Snapshot interface



When we started GetListed back in January 2009, only four search engines were
displayed on the snapshot page. As our app grew in popularity and we established
new relationships with data providers and other search engines, that list grew
ever-longer and the formerly-simple interface grew clunky and overwhelming. The
goal of the site (to get business owners to update erroneous information and add
missing information) became muddied.

We hope the new interface makes these calls-to-action much clearer--to create
listings on search engines where they don't exist, and to update information
that doesn't match reality. The new app consolidates the old Snapshot, Accuracy,
and Details pages, bringing accuracy front-and-center, and makes it easy to see
listing details inline without jumping from page-to-page.

Cleaner Dashboard interface



The new Dashboard removes the clutter of favicon-style search engine logos
(another problem created by our gradual expansion to include more listing
providers over the last four years). The new Dashboard provides a quick way to
assess listing scores at a glance, and easy access to the details page for your
listings from clickable business titles.

U.S. version only

Over the past couple of months, we've noticed GetListed UK and GetListed CA
returning an unacceptably high number of errors on business queries. As part of
this release, we've decided to temporarily suspend these versions in order to
focus on the backend and interface for our U.S. audience, which accounted for
98% of all queries run in April. After we've had a chance to analyze our
domestic audience usage on this new system, we plan to re-release UK- and
CA-specific versions (along with more international sites) later in the year.


Looking ahead

Well, that takes care of most of the major changes for this release. Feedback,
as always, is welcome. We've even added a handy-dandy tab where you can submit
feedback directly within the app; you can also feel free to email me at
davidm@seomoz.org.

I hope I've laid out a compelling case above for the rationale behind this
release from a user's perspective. From a development perspective, the goal of
this iteration of GetListed was to create a foundation for more frequent feature
releases and better integration with SEOmoz tools moving forward. It paves the
way for a number of new features we will be rolling out over the course of the
summer and fall, which all of us on the GetListed team are even more excited
about. Looking forward to sharing those with you soon!
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