As nearly as I can tell, Merchant Circle is certainly pushy, but they also have a lot of potential, if people do start using them. Again, they are FREE. I’ve got a listing on there that I’ve been maintaining for over a year, and even if the only people paying attention to it are other local business owners, that’s better than no one at all. I also like the ‘answers’ thing.

Sure, Merchant Circle wants you to pay for one of their advertising services, or whatever, but why would you ever want to do that, given their low traffic? They aren’t bad as a free service.

Did they hijack a bunch of sites to create listings? Maybe, but again, the solution is to claim the listing (and it’s free), and change the links to point to your actual website.

Not saying I approve, just saying that you can make it more of an asset than an irritation.

I was initially put off by the information they placed on the listing of my business, specifically the blog page they posted under my business name. It was not representative of my company brand or our real blog, which seeks to provide relavent information to the public without an annoying sales pitch. The Merchant Circle blog posted under our company name was completely oriented to cheap sales jargon which neither benifitted my business nor any potential client.

I requested that my listing be removed.

However… It quickly became apparrent that my competitors were getting first page ranking of their Merchant Circle lisings so I rethought my position and took control of the listing, adding my own blog posts and coupons. And to be honest, it puts us ahead in many searches.

It is still disturbing that someone can claim so much power over others without consent.

Bill Huntley