Local listing for entity that's also national?

[Marcia]

Two separate questions, but somewhat related.

If there's a company local to a small city (or region) that's a fully owned subsidiary of a national company that has an OPD listing under an industrial b-to-b category, what does it take for the local company, which was an independent entity until a recent acquisition, to be able to have a local listing for the locality? Or is it an impossibility?

Secondly, for a local regional category, there are bonafide, nationally recognized non-profit organizations that serve the local population and have a local physical presence. Can those be submitted to the appropriate local category even if the parent organization has a listing at a broader topical level?

[pleeker]

In each case, does the local entity have its own web site with unique content that would be of specific interest to the users of the local/regional categories?

If so, I would think they could both be listed. But in the end, it's in the hands of the individual editor(s) and how they want to build out their categories. (I oversee a local category at a different directory and I'd certainly add local chapters of national non-profits if the above conditions were met....)

[windharp]

what does it take for the local company

The same things that a possible customer would expect to find: Clear information about the location of the company (address, pictures, ... - I can't understand that some companies don't provide that, since I consider it a vital point in a trustworthy image.) and at least some unique informations about it. Of course some content will be shared with the main company, but there should be as reason to list the site when thinking about "unique content".

Disclaimer: This is said without knowing anything about the company. For example the ODP has a much more restricting set of rules for real estate agents, because some of those are among the most aggressie spammers we know.

Can those be submitted to the appropriate local category even if the parent organization has a listing at a broader topical level?

The same rule applies: If they have their own unique site (not regarding if it is called www.mylocalthing.org or www.organization.org/mylocalthing/ or ...) with their own unique content: Yes.

[hutcheson]

Local editors are often very enthusiastic about representing all aspects of their community (society, economy, culture, religion.) So submitted sites (including commercial ones) often get reviewed there very quickly. It is possible to abuse that hospitality (e.g., with no-unique-content business-cards-buried-under-tons-of-template-boilerplate) and get a very bad reputation. But a umbrella organization (religious, charitable, social, educational) that provides its regional offices with basic webdesign templates (e.g., for schedules, maps, articles, news), GETS THE LOCAL YOKELS TO FILL THE CONTENT IN, and submits ONLY the filled-in templates -- is likely to get a good reputation and many deeplinks -= even for subpages that wouldn't have been listed if they were on the other site.

A good reputation is worth something, especially at human-edited directories.