Yellowpages.com AT&T "Free" business listing is just an invitation to endless telemarketing calls to upgrade to a paid listing Internet

If you sign up for the "free" business listing on www.yellowpages.com you must wait at least 30 days while your listing is "processing".

During that time you will receive multiple telemarketing calls attempting to convince you to upgrade to a paid listing.

After telling the last three telemarketers to put me on their do-not-call list I received another call today. This caller explained she was only confirming my listing but then went on to show me how my free listing would never appear on the first page of results.

She even said people will never see your free listing.

When I questioned this I learned my business name would have to be typed in exactly in order for anyone to find me on the first try. Otherwise, a potential customer would have to drill down through the categories and even then I would appear well below the paid listings.

I explained I could simply change my business name on the listing to the keywords that would produce results.

Her response was loosely: You can do that but youre just trying to get a higher ranking for free as if I was taking advantage of them.

Dont be duped by the offer of a free listing on yellowpages.com. All you are doing is volunteering to be a target of their telemarketing machine. Since you provided your business phone number all these annoying calls will come to your business line and actually interfere with your ability to conduct business.

If you want truly free exposure on the Internet try the following:

www.google.com/localbusinesscenter

http://advertising.superpages.com/spportal/quickbpflow.do

http://sites.google.com