Patent ID: 8818839

Claim:
A method comprising: as implemented by one or more computing devices configured with specific executable instructions, crawling a plurality of third party websites and social media providers to obtain information about a plurality of merchants, including basic information and enhanced information; correlating the information from the plurality of third party web sites and social media providers for the plurality of merchants based on merchant names, merchant phone numbers and merchant addresses; creating a merchant database based on the results of the crawling; providing a web page allowing a new merchant to create an account; receiving a request from the new merchant to create an account; receiving account creation information from the new merchant; linking the new merchant to an existing merchant entry in the merchant database based on the account creation information; creating an account for the new merchant as a subscribing merchant including updating the merchant database for the subscribing merchant based on the account creation information and the linking; monitoring the third party websites and social media providers for information regarding the subscribing merchant and the plurality of merchants; storing in the merchant database information regarding the subscribing merchant and the plurality of merchants found during the monitoring; providing an alert to the subscribing merchant based on the monitoring when an alert trigger is identified; providing a main web page allowing the subscribing merchant to select from a plurality of components including at least three of a competition component, a reviews component, a visibility component, a get customers component, and a communications component; receiving a selection of one of the plurality of components by the subscribing merchant; preparing an overall marketing score for the subscribing merchant based on the subscribing merchant accessing each of the plurality of the components, a number of appearances of the merchant on third party sites with consistent information, a number of reviews for the subscribing merchant on third party websites, a number of mentions in social media, and a number of offers promoted by the subscribing merchant; and displaying the overall marketing score on the main web page.