For those of you not familiar with this topic: a “citation” or “web reference” is a reference to your business on some other website. It is not necessarily a link and always contains your physical business address and/or local phone numbers.

Registering yourself at the local business listing directories help increasing your Local search engine rankings.

Citation Sources for All Major European Markets

These sites frequently appear as citations across all major European markets:

• Infobel.com – Business Directory in French, English, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and German (no sign up evident)
• Kompass.com – Business Directory in multiple languages (sign up)
• Leonardo.com – Database of businesses, Business 2 Business (no sign up evidenttr)
• Hotfrog.com – Business Directory (sign up)
• Tupalo.com – Businesses in your neighborhood service; also a hub for reviews (find your location and click “add a spot”)

Spain

• Paginas Amarillas – Provides primary business information (Spanish equivalent of yellow pages)
• PaginasAmarillas.com – Interestingly enough this is not the same company, and seems like a competitor to the above.
• Axesor.es – financial information about businesses
• Salir.com – ‘going out;’ provides citations in travel / clubbing, etc
• Myhotelvideo.com – big note: I see more of these video sites appearing in the travel business and they always seem to result in citations!
• Atrapalo.com – travel sector , hotels/restaurants get a listing
• 11870.com – nice project, user generated content. Gives you citations almost instantly, ranking very high.

The Netherlands

In the Netherlands there is no agreement yet on yellow pages (Gouden Gids) supplying business information, this might also be one of the reasons why business representation in the Netherlands still is somewhat behind. Currently Google relies on different providers, scraping, and of course the LBC. There might be a reason for them to ‘test’ if a good data repository can be built without the use of yellow pages.

• iLocal.nl - Probably the biggest and best local information provider in the Netherlands, easily surpassing Dutch yellow pages.
• Detelefoongids.nl – National phonebook, has a business search option. Google might be using this one as its source although it doesn’t state it anywhere
• Europages.nl – Business directory with featured listings, 1 million listings, coverage Europe
• Zoover.nl – Review site about hotels/camping sites, one of the biggest in the Netherlands, but not showing lots of citations in the Netherlands.
• Weekendjeweg.nl – Site dedicated to short trips, citations for hotels.

Germany

• Gelbeseiten.de – German yellow pages
• Qype.com – Business Directory
• De.local.yahoo.com – Germany is one of the few countries that has Yahoo Local available. Seems to be using data from ‘das Ortliche’
• Dasortliche.de – A German phonebook and business directory, high profile. Their listings correspond with official German Deutsche Telekom standards – but there seem to be no to little citations?
• Dastelefonbuch.de – Official German phonebook from Deutsche Telekom (the subsidiary of T-mobile) – seems to provide very few citations?
• Klicktel.de – Phonebook and business directory,
• Goyellow.de – One search in maps.google.de resulted in 250K results.
• Pointoo.de – Local bookmark service
• Firma-adresse.com – Addresses of businesses
• Suchnase.de – Directory/search engine
• Belocal.de – Review website

Italy

• Paginegialle.it – Most default information seems to be taken from Italian yellow pages
• Reteimprese.it
• Paginebianche.it - Italian white pages
• Prontoimprese.it – business directory
• Catalogo-pmi.com - business directory

France

• Qype.fr – French version of Qype.
• Voozici.com – French review/directory site

Source: David Mihm