Is the word Profile a dirty word for Search Engine Marketing?

With all the profile offerings in the world today (www.merchantcircle.com, www.onlineinlocal.com, www.reachlocal.com, www.getfoundlocal.com) is the word business “profile” turning in to a dirty search enging marketing word?  Not all profiles are created equal and not all businesses should copy their descriptions across the multiple profile sites.  Why?  Because the number one most obvious problem is, duplicate content and lack of value.

 Think about it.  Why copy the exact same information across all the search engines while creating mini websites about your business.  Chances are, you describe your business a certain way for a reason and you probably don’t like to change the description over and over again.  The goal of a search engine is to find the most relevant search results and reward the sites with helpful, valuable information by placing them at the top of the listings.  How many IYPs do you see in the top 10 results of your local service business keyword?  Exactly, most of them. 

 I hate going to a search engine to find results on another search engine for another search engine.  Confusing?  Let me explain.   Google.com search for des moines ia plumber.  Results:  Superpages.com, discoverourtown.com, dexknows.com and servicemagic.  More than half of the results are other localized search pages.  I don’t like that and neither does Google (as they hinted at during the Kelsey Group’s recent ILM Local show).  What a great opportunity for a local plumber to dominate the search results and boom their business.

In a nutshell, business profiles need to disappear and businesses need to learn that they all need their own REAL website.  In the meantime, go fill out a few profiles and enjoy the IYP profile blessings while you still can.