It's Not Local Search if It's Not Authoritative

I just found another local search engine that says it has 13 million listings for the US. In fact, you can buy a list for a state for a flat fee. I was tempted, but then I tried to see how the good the data is. I did a search for "avocado" for Fallbrook, CA and it came back with no results found. I also tried some business names which I know to exist, but nothing found. I did some category searches for restaurants, and two of them have been out of business for over two years. Another replay of roll-your-own search.

What I don't get about all these people is how they expect a local business person who has never heard of them to log into their web site and then authenticate their listing. That might work for a business that does exist and the owner just "happens" to find every possible search engine in existence that would allow them to log in and correct their information. But what if a business moves or ceases operation? Do you think the owner of the now defunct operation will go to all the trouble to update every single search entity with the fact that he no longer exists? This expectation is silly at best and tragic at worst.

There is still only one way for this to work, and that there has to be people on the ground in each locale that is responsible for keeping the database accurate. I really can't understand how it can be any other way. You can dress up functionality on the site any way you want, but without authoritative data, it really is useless. And that goes not only for listing data, but GIS data as well. Not keeping up with street re-alignments and other surface changes is absolutely essential to a well-kept search engine. If anybody in search land disagrees with me, please give me a convincing argument for not having accurate data. I'm really anxious to hear it.