Local search data and content provider Localeze has introduced what it’s calling the “Localeze Confidence Score.” The confidence score is the company’s statement to third party search engines and local directory partners about the accuracy of its local data and business records. The company is associating a confidence score with each of the millions of records it provides to those partners.

According to the press materials:

To arrive at a score, local business listings are driven through a comprehensive and ongoing process employing 14 individual weighted validation parameters. When combined, these elements apply an aggregate quantitative value to each listing, which represents its overall presentation-strength.  This tool gives local search engines complete control over the selection and filtering of data they receive through the powerful Localeze Enhanced Business Registry.

Listings that it obtains from sources that update regularly or directly from local businesses will tend to receive higher confidence scores than sources that offer infrequent or irregular updates. However this criterion is one of many, as suggested above, that contribute to the confidence score. I spoke to Localeze President Jeff Beard about the launch yesterday. The confidence score is part of a larger effort to transition the company from “data vendor” to “content management company” that offers a much broader array of services to the local online marketplace.

The new scoring methodology will enable search engines to assess the probable accuracy of the listings they’re serving in response to local queries (a much more frequent happening now on Google). While Beard wouldn’t say that search engines or online directory publishers would factor Localeze’s confidence score into their algorithmic rankings, it’s quite likely that the score may become one of the many weighted factors determining organic local search rankings.

Localeze is one of three major providers of local data to search engines. The other two are InfoUSA and Acxiom.

Related Topics: Google: Maps & Local | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines

About The Author: Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog Screenwerk, about SoLoMo issues and connecting the dots between online and offline. He also posts at Internet2Go, which is focused on the mobile Internet. Follow him @gsterling. See more articles by Greg Sterling