We’ve talked briefly before about what “Listing Unavailable” means in one of our videos, but there’s a lot of confusion around what triggers this and how to resolve it. Which is totally understandable! With so many publishers, it’s easy to lose track of what is where and when and why. To help, here’s a rundown of what causes the “Listing Unavailable” warning and how to solve that error as quickly as possible.
In this post, we’ll cover:
The most common error we see is the listing being unavailable due to the local phone number or category being incorrect.
With phone numbers, remember that the main phone numbers must be local numbers. Toll-free numbers (1-800, 1-888, 1-866, etc.) will not be accepted as a main line, especially for businesses with multiple locations.
Last, categories must be included on each listing; listings without categories will not be pushed to publishers.
Addresses sometimes with cause a “listing unavailable” issue for several reasons.
First, if the address is fake then our system will reject it outright. Your clients with mobile businesses (e.g. food trucks, maid services, painters, handymen, pop-up shops, etc.) may give you a fake address in order to avoid listing their personal locations as their business address. For these clients, emphasize the “suppress address” feature in our platform, and how that will NOT expose their location to partners.
Alternatively, addresses can trigger an error is when they’re simply difficult to locate. This includes locations that are in rural areas, or businesses located in new developments. In these cases, try listing your address by any alternate names your street may have (e.g. FM roads as US roads, or local street names as SH roads) and giving the local address on the second line.
If you continue to have problems with the address, please contact support. If you can locate the business with geographic coordinates, please include those with your support request!
We mentioned the “address suppression” feature earlier; it would be remiss to not mention that there are caveats to this feature. Some publishers are rigid about their address requirements. As a result, if you choose to suppress a business’s address, you will be automatically opted out of certain publishers.
Some Yext publishers have restrictions on types of businesses that can be listed on their sites. If your business falls into the “adult entertainment category” (burlesque, exotic dancing, etc.) it is possible the publisher will reject your listing.
You can choose to opt out of that publisher, or contact our support team directly for more assistance.
Many times, Yext cannot create or take control of a PowerListing for you because your business is already working with that publisher directly through their own paid advertising program. This Is a fairly common problem, and it means your client has probably forgotten about paying for a service on one our publishing sites.
Sites that this warning could appear on include: CitySearch, Local.com, Yahoo!, Bing, Merchant Circle (through YP.com, CityGrid, or HomeAdvisor), SuperPages, MapQuest (via BizLocator), and Tupalo (via CityGrid).
In these cases, you will need to work with your client and/or their previous listings managing service to gain access to those paid listings and alter their subscription status. Unfortunately, Yext cannot troubleshoot those services for you directly.
If you are receiving this notice but neither you nor your client has is using a paid advertising service with one of these Partners, please contact our support team directly.
There are multiple reasons Facebook will yield an error when syncing. Some tips to improve your sync experience include:
If Foursquare is displaying an error, there are one of two possibilities:
In both cases, if you continue to have trouble with Foursquare, please contact our support team directly.
Yelp has certain restrictions about how much we can manage listings for them.
Name length: Business names on Yelp through Yext can only be 64 characters in length. For a business name that is longer, please contact our support team directly.
Location limits: Yelp does not allow PowerListings for businesses with five or more locations. If this applies to you, please contact the support team directly for next steps.
Some publishers are region-specific; if your business is not covered in their region, your listing will be unavailable on that publisher until their territory expands or you opt out.
If you run into a “Listing Unavailable” reason not covered here, please don’t hesitate to contact us directly with your concerns and questions!