Please do not submit update requests from the contact form or via email. We can only action update requests that are sent using the Report an Error form.

Thank you.

In an effort to streamline the editing of records on Bizwiki and ensure that vital changes are actioned and go through to the live site fast, we are making some major changes to how records are submitted and reviewed.

The “Add / Edit a Record” functionality will soon be consolidated into the ‘Report an Error’ feature. This has the benefit to users of not requiring them to register for an account and log in to be able to request a fix or report an error with an existing business record, and will streamline the processing of records by editors by having only the important fixes come through to them.

We have had a great deal of success in adding and compiling business records using our fine-tuned Bizwiki Bot Spider, and new company records will be added to the site periodically at regular intervals. We will also be adding additional depth to existing records using the same technology, with human editors getting involved where required.

The result of this should be fewer features immediately available to users to add and edit records on the site, but a faster response rate to any required fixes and edits to existing records. We also anticipate the process of requesting important changes both being made easier for visitors, who will now be able to do so without any registration being required, and a reduced workload on our editors who put so much effort in to staying on top of it all.

This is a step in the evolution of the Bizwiki project, so while some users may miss some of the functionality that is being retired we hope that you will enjoy the faster response times, periodic automatic updates, and continue to use and benefit from the site.

If you’re looking for a nice and simple New Year’s resolution that might be able to help make a lasting impact, consider opting out of the delivery of physical phone books and yellow page directories.

More and more people are finding the vast majority of their information about local businesses online, so if you aren’t finding yourself actually making use of the yellow page book you might be happy to hear it’s now easier to opt out of receiving it on your doorstep.

It’s wishful thinking to ever expect the directory publishers to ever make it opt-in, but thanks to a few websites you can now at least ask for the huge books not to be sent to you.  If you don’t use them and find they tend to make a short trip from delivery to the recycling bin, there’s no better time than New Years to decide to do something about it.

According to YellowPagesOptOut, “Why do we want to help you manage your directories?

Because we understand that delivering unwanted directories doesn’t benefit anyone. All participating companies must follow the guidelines in our Commitment to Consumer Choice. And in 2007, we adopted Industry Environmental Guidelines, which calls on all members to be more environmentally responsible in their business practices. “

Opting out:

And have a very Happy New Year!

We are happy to be able to announce that the Bizwiki project passed another milestone at the end of last week, when our 150,000th Editor registered on Bizwiki.co.uk.

This means that there are now over 150,000 people who have signed up to Bizwiki to help edit, add, correct and improve business information on the site.

Millions of people access and use the information on Bizwiki and the other sites it powers every month, so this is a great time to say thanks to the many users who are helping make this site the useful resource that it is. In a testament to the power of collaboration, we are seeing more improvements every day to the width of coverage of the business community but also to the depth of information about the individual companies that compose it.

The Bizwiki site is built around a self-organised and collaborative community that any of our users are invited to join. Rather than the usual experience of just reading what a website has to say, everyone is invited to actively participate. Users can help produce for themselves the best and most comprehensive index of businesses on the web, or the most detailed index of companies in their town or even street.

If you’d like to join in, add a company or update any of the information on the site, just click the Create Account link to become a Bizwiki Editor.

The latest version of Bizwiki has just gone live –and it’s a record breaker!

This new update to the site was a colossal undertaking, combining updates submitted by many of the site’s users and manual changes made by the editorial team over the last few months with a huge update across all categories of business using the Bizwikibot spider. The result is not just more up-to-date company records, but a greater depth and breadth of business information is now available to our site’s users than ever.

A grand total of 4,936,758 existing businesses on Bizwiki have had their information edited and updated. This includes manually added content, address changes, telephone and contact detail updates and map location changes.

A remarkable 5,068,071 new businesses have been added to Bizwiki, in many cases completely with in-depth information. This means that the site is now larger and covers the country more comprehensively than ever.

1,367,582 of the old businesses on the site have been marked as obsolete and deleted. This includes businesses that have closed down over during the last couple of tumultuous years, but also companies that have transformed, been renamed or relaunched in new business categories.

There have been a number of dedicated people involved in these updates, changes and the reorganisation over the last six months, but the lion’s share of the credit has to go to our Chief Technical Architect Keith Hinde, who has really pulled out all the stops to make this happen.

And of course, we’d like to say a special thank you to all the many visitors who have helped by adding, editing and increasing the amount of useful information on the site. That especially applies to business owners and representatives who have pitched in to help improve the online profile of their own companies – nobody knows your business better than you, and on the behalf of the Bizwiki team I’d like to thank you for sharing your knowledge with all our site’s users.

Thanks!

This is a giant project involving changes and additions across hundreds of categories of business and hundreds of thousands of companies, and involves manually submitted entries added by our users and editors, updates from databases and detailed information gathered by our BizwikiBot spider.

We expect to have the new version rolled out across the site soon, and hope that it will help Bizwiki be an ever more useful resource for our many visitors and users.

Watch this space for more information!

We are pleased to announce a huge update of Bizwiki UK’s index of companies and information has been completed. Consisting of tens of thousands of user-edited records and new additions that have been hand-processed by our editorial team and more than quarter of a million records being updated or having additional information added to them by our BizwikBot spider, this is a major update and should result in even better depth of information across the site.

There is now the grand total of 1,412,330 businesses in the Bizwiki UK database, and thanks to the submissions our registered users and visitors are making this is a number that continues to grow.

A large part of the credit for the quality and depth of information in this update goes to Bizwiki’s Chief Technical Architect, Keith Hinde, who has been slaving away on this piece of work for more than half a year. On behalf of the site’s editors and users, thanks for your tireless efforts!

Thanks also to the  many users and editors who have continued to add high-quality and detailed information about the companies they know, helping make Bizwiki a useful and popular business resource for all our visitors.

It seems that 2011 was a tough year for many businesses due to the state of the economy and turmoil in the markets, but we’re now entering a new one and hope that it will be brighter.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the writers and editors who contributed their diligence, knowledge, time and information to the Bizwiki project during the last year. It has been appreciated, and all our users have benefited from your efforts.

Here’s to the New Year!

Such is the fate of the traditional yellow page directory. Why? In an age of online directories, print directories are like clay tablets: large, cumbersome, limited, and unwieldy.

Even then, the comparison can’t emphasise just how obsolete they’ve become, all over the world. If you’re a business owner, you normally can’t get your details printed in them without paying a regular fee. You can’t easily edit the information without calling up the publisher. And even if you get your details in there, that’s it: you’re in a single publisher’s directory, viewable only to people who get the printed brick dropped outside their door. And what if there’s a mistake in the book, or your details change? No fixes will be forthcoming until the next print run.

Compare that with something like Bizwiki, for example: anyone can submit their business details to it, covering a wide range of information - information about your company, your email addresses, website addresses, and phone numbers - far beyond the traditional few words you’re limited to in print. Anyone can edit the business information as well, which makes it exceptionally easy to keep the information up-to-date and current. Best of all, it’s completely free. There’s no pushy sales people to deal with trying to sell you extras; it’s completely in your control, and that’s the way it should be.

On top of that, anyone using a search engine like Google looking for “Plumbers in Aldershot” or “Attorneys in Austin, Texas” is a potential customer. (Not to mention that, depending on your business, your potential customers could now be located anywhere in the UK, US or even the whole world, instead of being limited to a particular geographic location). Plus, if you add your details to Bizwiki UK, for example, you’ll appear in other directories on-line, like AccessPlace.com, increasing your exposure.

Then, consider the user, or customer, who wants to find a business. Printed directories have one method of organisation: dumping everything into categories, and organising them alphabetically. You can’t search by postcode, zip code, state, town or city. You can’t search for a particular business name. In short, with on-line directories, the customer is not limited to one particular method of finding business information.

Then, there’s the issue of portability. Mobile phone usage across the world has sky-rocketed. If you’re on the train, and want to find a nearby restaurant, tome-like yellow page monstrosities can’t sit there conveniently in your back-pocket.

Realistically, the only thing yellow-page style printed directories are destined for is the recycling bin. Alternatively, you could have a bit of fun and collect them from your neighbours, dump them on the doorstep of the publisher, and get scolded for creating a fire hazard. But, the point is, we simply don’t use them anymore, because they’ve been superseded by a new medium that is more current, accurate, and easy to use, for both business owners and customers. Plus, digital content isn’t made of dead trees, and that can only be a good thing.

“Rich snippets” is basically Google’s implementation of various “microformats”. Microformats are pieces of structured HTML code that can describe your website page, which in turn will help Google properly classify your website, make it accessible on their Place pages, and also help them understand the content on the page itself.

While it may sound daunting, rich snippets are very easy to implement, and help Google identify information such as reviews, people profiles, business listings, and events. As a simple example, let’s say you have a webpage where you normally list your contact details using the following HTML code:

<p>

   <h4>Bob’s Building Company</h4>

   Contact me, Andrew Other, on:<br />

   Work: 01252 XXXX<br />

   Cell: 0795 XXXXXXX<br /><br />

   Our work address is:<br />

   147 Some Street<br />

   Another Town<br />

   GU8 8AA, UK

</p>

With rich snippets, you can now tell Google what each bit of information represents:

<p class=”vcard”>

   <h4 class=”org”>Bob’s Building Company</h4>

   Contact me, <span class=”fn”>Andrew Other</span>, on:<br />

   <span class="tel">

      <span class="type">Work</span>:

      <span class="value">01252 XXXX</span><br />

   </span>   

   <span class="tel">

      <span class="type">Cell</span>:

      <span class="value">0795 XXXXXXX</span><br /><br />

   </span>

   <div class="adr">

      Our <span class="type">work</span> address is:<br />

      <span class="street-address">147 Some Street</span><br />

      <span class=”locality”>Another Town</span><br />

      <span class=”region”>Hampshire</span><br />

      <span class=”postal-code”>GU8 8AA</span>, <span class=”country-name”>UK</span>

   </div>

</p>

While this may at first glance look strange, close inspection shows there is method to the madness. Let’s break it down:

<p class=”vcard”>: This tells Google that all information between the opening and closing <p></p> tags is part of a vCard. A vCard is a microformat standard that helps describe information about a person or business.

<h4 class=”org”>Bob’s Building Company</h4>: org tells Google that “Bob’s Building Company” is the name of the organisation that this vCard is associated with.

<span class=”fn”>Andrew Other</span>: fn tells Google that “Andrew Other” is the name of the person this vCard is associated with. (if fn and org both have the same value, Google will treat the vCard as being details for a place of business). This next one is a bit more tricky:

<span class=”tel”>
   <span class=”type”>Work</span>:
   <span class=”value”>01252 XXXX</span><br />
</span>

The first portion, <span class=”tel”> … </span> tells Google that everything between the <span></span> tags  is a telephone number. <span class=”type”>Work</span> then tells Google the the telephone number is a Work number, and then <span class=”value”>01252 XXXX</span>instructs Google as to what the telephone number actually is.

The next telephone number deals with a cellphone number, so you’ll see that we used the same format as the work number, but we told Google that the type is different:  <span class=”type”>Cell</span>

The last portion of our example details the work address for Andrew Other:

<div class=”adr”>
   Our <span class=”type”>work</span> address is:<br  />
   <span class=”street-address”>147 Some  Street</span><br />
   <span class=”locality”>Another Town</span><br  />
   <span class=”region”>Hampshire</span><br />
   <span class=”postal-code”>GU8 8AA</span>, <span  class=”country-name”>UK</span>
</div>

As you can see, the format is quite similar yet again.  <div class=”adr”> is telling Google that the information that follows details an address, <span class=”type”>work</span> says it is a work address, and then each element of the address is broken down according to “street-address”, “locality”, “region”, “postal-code” and “country-name”.

There are many different codes for the hCard format, which can be viewed on the Microformat website, along with more in-depth explanations, and examples.

Also, as mentioned earlier, Google also supports formats for reviews, events, businesses and organisations, and even recipes.

For more information on Google’s Rich Snippets, the following links should help:

Rich Snippets for Local Search
Rich Snippets Help Documentation