These are details of a change to BrightLocal's Data Aggregators service that will occur on 31st December, 2020.
Earlier in 2020, one of our data aggregators, Foursquare, acquired another, Factual. We have kept these services separate in BrightLocal as they have operated independently, each with a different range of data outputs.
From December 31st, 2020, though, Foursquare will be fully integrating all of Factual and its data outputs, meaning that while purchasing our Data Aggregators service will result in business data going to the same number of outputs, the number of aggregators they go through will reduce from four to three.
Will this affect how I use data aggregators in BrightLocal?
Not substantially. As Foursquare has acquired all of the outputs of Factual, customers won't see any reduction in the business listing directories and maps apps that business data is pushed out to.
As part of Foursquare's evolution, the location company is shifting focus to other areas and will therefore no longer be updating its 'City Guide', which enables users to see their business data as listed in Foursquare. As of December 31st, this functionality won't be available in new data aggregator submissions from BrightLocal, either. It's worth noting, however, that Foursquare has promised to work on a new reporting feature in Q1 that will allow us to report on data and listing accuracy. We'll keep customers informed about this update as and when it happens.
As the online visibility that customers get through our data aggregators will remain the same, we won't be making any changes to pricing.
If you have any queries or questions about this change, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our friendly support team.