FTD Shouts Yahoo!

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CHR

Design matters
Nov 28, 2002
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In the spirit of Christmas, I've added a post to the newly redesigned Real Florist Blog (applause to Infinite for the new look and features!!!)

In case you haven't noticed, about ten days ago Yahoo Local added links directly to FTD.com under the listings of thousands of real local florists. Quite a Christmas present, huh?

Here's the text from the blog post:

'Twas the week before Christmas, when all through the net
Florist saw Yahoo Local showing something instead;
Of their own URLs for their real flower shops,
FTD.com's link did Yahoo Local just plop.

Florist listings lead shoppers to the ‘national’ site,
Where commissions and fees FTD'd rake in with delight.
Or switch sales to boxes of FedExed bouquets;
Local florists unneeded to make those displays.

Leonard Green's Group just laughed at the URL swaps,
Knowing florists weren't able Yahoo's linking to stop.
Short-term profits! they thought 'til we unload this turkey
‘Hope The Street doesn’t notice our numbers are murky.’

With a little young driver, fear in florists he strikes;
Wondering if Yahoo’s plot was a plan of young Mike’s.

"Now, Wal-Mart! now, Kroger! now, Stop and Shop stores!
On, Alberton's! Safeway! And other grocers front doors!
To the top of the Googles! to the top of most Search!
Killing profits of florists they’ve long left in the lurch.

He spoke not a word, but went right straight to work,
Thinking ’Send all your money, shoppers dollars we’ll divert,
To our drop shift gift boxes and surprise ‘service’ fees,
Soon we’re out of this biz with all the profits we can squeeze.’

From the goodwill we’ve had off those real florists’ backs,
Hope a buyer soon’s reeled in by elves Goldman Sachs.’
We heard FTD exclaim, as they saw Yahoo’s news,
"Who needs florist? Except when they give us their dues.”
 
My take, not enough internet savvy florists who would catch it and b**ch to Yahoo about "non local" entities. But even if they did, I'm sure that Yahoo would require it in writing and send a reply by snail mail in the next 6 weeks which eliminates the amount of time the perpetrator had to make the bucks on the "non correct" listing.........phew, that was a mouthful !!
 
Hmmm... Mine's still there, and correct...

In fact, I have 3 of the top 4 results, including #1 in Local (today) :)
 
For at least ten days, during the busy holiday season, Yahoo Local added FTD's URL under many stores' names and addresses. I saw at least 4 in the town of Fullerton, CA alone.

Late on Christmas Day (after I posted on the blog) I noticed the links had been removed or replaced with links to the florists' own Yellow Page ads.

Amazing how this kind of funny stuff appears during florists' busiest times. Rhonda is right. Most shops probably didn't even notice. Stores with a well-established web presence were unaffected. It was the shops with weak or zero websites that got the FTD.com links.
 
Amazing how this kind of funny stuff appears during florists' busiest times.
Ya think? I don;t... I think it's that little room off the kitchen on the 2nd floor... I've always wondered why that door was locked every time I visited ;)
 
Isn't this interesting. Let me fill you in on what took place on this matter. I contacted FTD when it was found that the FTD.com link was placed on many listings in Yahoo Local in Louisville, KY. Mine was one of those listings. We found out when a customer who uses our site went to Yahoo Local to click on our link to place an order like they have done many times before and they called because they kept going to the FTD.com site. I called and emailed FTD and received a call back with them putting the blame on Yahoo Local and InfoUSA. So in turn I placed a call to the person in charge of the Yahoo Local listings and received a return call from them. No one would ever take blame for this taking place and Yahoo said they were made aware of the problem from FTD who was working with them to get this corrected. I was told to go to my listing and re-claim it. I did that and my listing was returned to the orginal state in a couple of days. FTD said that they thought that InfoUSA had sent the wrong information to Yahoo and that InfoUSA could have gotten the information from the Find A Florist on the FTD.com web site. I don't have a clue if this is true or not.

I never did find out what did really happen on this matter but I do know that each person kept pointing the finger at the other person. In my opinion it seemed very funny this took place on the 10 days before Christmas when the consumer would be using this listing. I can assure you that I will be keeping an eye on listing such as this in the future. I will also limit my exposure with companies who elect to allow this to happen.
 
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Russ -

Thanks for getting to the bottom of this.

I figured no one would take credit/blame but hope everyone notes how powerful InfoUSA is. Their data is used by Yahoo, Google and most Internet YPs. Mistakes can be difficult and time consuming to fix.

Black hats can change your business' data and knock you out of many listings all at one time. Both my own shop and my husband's school have been targets.

It's time consuming to monitor all the places where your business name shows up, but it's important to check them regularly.
 
I think I know what happened.

If you look on ftdfloristonline directory you have the shop online listings and then you have the call or visit listings.

I remembered that chas schaefer flowers in York PA was complaining about this.

Three of the shops are listed under the call or visit listing. Perhaps that has something to do with it. The shops listed under the call or visit don't go to a website but just to an information page.
 
Okay, I'm having a senior moment right now because before today (or since the last time I tried it) if I typed in my zip code, ftdfloristsonline did not show a shop in my town. I have an independant site not attached to FTD. Today, I type in my zip and hmmmmm I show up! And if you used "Find a florist" search again no one showed up. Today I do. Not sure when they started this "freebie" (like as of yet I'm not charged for it that I know of)...
Very interesting.
 
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