There are too many local search and directory sites on the web with business listings that need to be managed. It’s a common complaint from small business owners. What’s worse, new sites seem to be popping up on a regular basis, drawing their business information from any one of several data clearinghouses (such as Acxiom, InfoUSA, Amacai/Localeze, and others). What small business owner can keep track of it all?

Merchant Circle, which has had some problems this year with small business owners, is trying to make good, and make life easier for business owners with its new Web Identity Manager (WIM).

Businesses who sign up for one of MC’s paid packages can use the WIM to monitor and dispute their listings on other sites/directories. The sample page (below) shows listings from SuperPages, Yahoo Local, Yelp, and Insider Pages — a nice start, but by no means an exhaustive list. It would be nice to see a full list of the 3rd party sites you can monitor with the WIM, but I don’t find such a list anywhere on MC’s site.

I’m not a business owner, so I can’t comment on how the WIM works. Still, I think this is a fine idea. The problem, of course, is that Merchant Circle doesn’t have near the visibility needed to gain traction with this. Heck, when even Google has to get more aggressive in going after small business, what chance does a smaller player like Merchant Circle have to make big inroads with a service like this?

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