Merchant data sent in by fans of merchants and from merchants themselves is becoming increasingly important. Can it be relied on as a main source, or should it only complement listing data from the big three providers — InfoGroup, Acxiom and Localeze?

We talked to Pankaj Mathur, InfoGroup vice president of business development, about it. Not surprisingly, he has mixed feelings. It is certainly useful and cost effective, and from an SEM perspective, there is sometimes the feeling that “more [data elements] is better,” he says.

But he warns that accuracy and reliability are more important than ever before, especially with mobile phones that can send people to bad locations. Also looming is the sense that merchants are incentivized to misrepresent themselves so that they can boost their search rankings or be found under lucrative-but-wrong categories (i.e., cab companies under “airports”).

InfoGroup (and probably the other leaders in the space) instead take the “trust but verify” approach to merchant data. The company receives 10,000 to 15,000 submissions per month from multiple partners such as OnStar, Yahoo and AOL. “We find that about 50 percent of these submissions are false positive like duplicates or incorrect information, “says Mathur.

In a newly issued article, Mathur goes into more detail about the importance of the duplicates issue. In franchise corporations, for instance, there may be lists of storefronts within marketing departments, operations departments and accounting deparrtments. They don’t always overlap with LBS (location-based services) requests, he notes.

Moreover, retailers often neglect to delete or change storefront information — something that creates a special mess when companies such as Starbucks close hundreds of units throughout the country. Mathur suggests one-step updaters (such as his company’s “Express Update”) are a partial answer. In the meantime, the validated information from the leading listing providers remains in the driver’s seat.

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Canada’s Yellow Pages Group has deepened its investment in verticals with its recent acquisition of Restaurantica, one of Canada’s largest online dining communities. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but a report by Paul Steep at Scotia Capital suggests the amount was immaterial to YPG’s financial results.

Restaurantica was founded in 2003, and has more than 400,000 restaurant listings (50,000 in Canada) and 200,000 reviews in North America. YPG’s objective is to deepen content and user engagement in one of its most critical online search categories. The deal is interesting in part because YPG CEO Marc Tellier has in the past made statements expressing doubts about the compatibility of consumer reviews and Yellow Pages.

According to Nicolas Gaudreau, YPG’s vice president, digital media: “Approximately 80 percent of dining decisions are significantly influenced by recommendations and reviews. This acquisition allows us to reinforce our commitment to helping consumers make smarter business decisions.”

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