Not surprisingly, a question did arise on the matter. SEO Andrew Shotland had asked Apple about submitting ” a few hundred locations” on behalf of a client. Apple responded by saying that “bulk uploads” were only going to be accepted for businesses “with at least 1,000 locations.”
Apple then directed Shotland in email to a list of third party providers who apparently have direct access into Apple now on behalf of clients:
- DAC Group
- Factual
- Location3 Media
- Marquette Group
- Neustar/Localeze
- Placeable
- PositionTech
- SIM Partners
- SinglePlatform
- UBL
- Yelp
- Yext
- Yodle
As of this time, Apple isn’t “endorsing” any of these companies specifically, but reliance on them by apple to manage multi-location submissions is a privileged spot.
So here’s the situation in a nutshell:
- If you’re an individual business, you will be able to submit directly to Apple Mapps Connect.
- Are you a brand/marketer who manages the presence of at least 1,00 locations? you can “bulk upload” directly to Apple.
- If you have multiple locations, but you don’t have 1,o00 of them, you will have to deal with one of the entities listed above.