Citation audit: how to find and fix wrong business listings

A citation audit is a check of every place your business is listed online, comparing each listing's name, address, phone number, website and opening hours against one correct record, then fixing the listings that are wrong and removing the duplicates. One is due after a move, a new business name, a new phone number or a closed branch, or when you have never checked at all. This page covers what to record for each listing, the tools that find listings and what they cost, how each big platform lets you fix or merge a listing, the cases the platforms treat differently, and what a paid citation audit and citation cleanup service hands over.

What a citation audit is

A citation is a mention of a business's name, address and phone number (NAP) on another site: a map listing, a directory, a review site or a social profile. A citation audit (or local citation audit) checks every one of those mentions against a single correct record for the business.

The audit has three jobs:

1. Find every listing of the business.
2. Compare each listing to your master record.
3. Fix or remove what does not match.

An online citation audit tool does the finding and the comparing for you. BrightLocal's page for its Citation Tracker says: "Citation Tracker finds incorrect Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) data, detects duplicate listings, and identifies your competitors’ citations across the web."

The result is a working list: every listing found, each marked correct, wrong or duplicate. Building new listings is a separate job, covered in our guide to citation building; this page is about checking and correcting the ones that exist.

What to record for each listing

Write the master record first (the exact name on your signage, the address, the main phone number, the website URL and the opening hours), then give every listing you find one row of its own. Include your own website: a website citation audit checks the name, address and phone number on your own pages too.

The audit record: one row per listing

The tools' own exports use much the same columns. BrightLocal's report lists the site or directory, name, address, postcode, phone number and status. Semrush's help page says its CSV export "will contain all directories, your location’s status for each, name/address/phone data, and a direct link, if available." Start from an export and add the date column yourself. The status column is the one you update as fixes go through, and the date column tells you which rows are due another look.

Tools that find your listings

Each tool covers what its own page describes, and no two of these pages describe the same set of sites. The prices here are the vendors' published prices in US dollars, read on 4 October 2026.

Four tools that find listings, with their published prices

The plans differ in what they include, so read each vendor's page before you pay.

Two checks cost nothing. Search for your business name together with your postcode, then search for your phone number in quotation marks. Note every listing in the first few pages of results and add each one to your record. Run the same searches for any old name, address or number the business has used, because old details are a common source of wrong listings.

More tools for a small budget are in SEO tools for small businesses.

How to fix a wrong listing and remove a duplicate, platform by platform

Each platform has its own route, and the words quoted here are from each platform's own help pages.

Google Business Profile

Edits happen inside the profile. On the name, Google's help page says: "Enter your business name exactly as it appears on your real world business signage, stationery, and other branding." Google allows only one Business Profile for each business. For a duplicate, the route is a merge request: "To request a merge when 2 or more Business Profiles for the same business exist on Maps, report a suggestion on Google Maps. All merge requests are subject to review." After a move, Google says you must verify the business again, and after a name change you might need to.

Apple Business

In Apple Business, formerly Apple Business Connect, locations are edited under Brands, then Locations. Apple's guide gives two reasons for removing a location: someone else manages it, or it is permanently closed. If someone else already manages your location, Apple says: "If you’re adding a location that’s already managed, you can request a transfer of that location to your organisation." Apple asks for supporting documents with that request, such as a business licence or a utility bill.

Bing Places

Microsoft's support page says: "To add or change information about your business in Bing Maps search results, use Bing Places for Business to claim or update your business listing." Claim the listing first, then edit it there.

Facebook

A Page name change is a request you send from the Page's settings. For the address, Facebook's help page says to drag the map pin to the right spot, and the step is not complete until the pin is moved. If you have access to both Pages, Facebook may let you merge them when they have the same name, the same address and the same Business Manager account. Know what you lose first: "Posts, photos, reviews, ratings and the username will be deleted from the Page you merge. The Page you don't want to keep will be removed from Facebook, and you won't be able to unmerge it."

Yelp

Owners edit in Yelp for Business. Yelp's support page says changes show at once and are then reviewed: "Updates from Yelp for Business will appear on your page immediately, but they’re submitted to our moderators for review against our guidelines." On duplicates, Yelp's rule is: "A business location should be listed only once on Yelp." Report the spare page as a duplicate from the Edit link on that page.

Yell

For UK businesses, Yell's support page says a listing is updated in the Yell for Business app or your online Yell account. If a listing for the business exists already, claim it rather than starting a second one: "If your business is already listed on Yell.com, you can choose to claim the existing business listing."

Smaller directories usually have a link on the listing itself to claim the business or suggest an edit. Where there is none, write to the site's contact address with the listing URL and the corrected details. Log each request in the status column of your record.

The special cases: a move, a new name, a new number, a closed branch

These are the changes that most often leave old listings behind, and the platforms do not treat them the same way.

The business moved

Google says to keep the existing profile: "If your business relocates, do not create a new Business Profile for the new location. Instead, update the existing profile with the new address." Yelp's rule depends on the business. Where location and ambience are core to the experience, Yelp says that when such a business moves, "we typically create a new business page and mark the old page as moved. Reviews and photos from the original business page generally won't be moved to the new one." For a shop, a service business or a move that leaves the experience unchanged, Yelp says the existing page can generally be updated. On Google the profile you keep changes address; on Yelp a business defined by its premises can get a new page, and its reviews stay behind.

The business changed its name

Google lets a profile keep going only for a small change: "Your Business Profile may be eligible for rebranding (defined as an eligible name change without creating a new Business Profile) if you make a minor name change, in which the proper nouns and services described in the business name remain unchanged and the business category remains unchanged." Anything bigger starts over: "You must mark the existing Business Profile as closed and then create a new Business Profile with your new business name." On Yelp: "In the event there is only a name change and the customer experience remains the same, generally we’ll update the existing business page."

The phone number changed

Update the number on every listing in your record, starting with Google, Apple, Bing, Facebook, Yelp and Yell. Google lets you add up to 2 more phone numbers beside the main one on the profile. An old number left on a listing sends callers to a line the business no longer uses, so this change is worth making everywhere at once.

A branch closed

Mark the branch closed on each platform. In Apple Business, removing a location with the reason that it is permanently closed marks it closed on Maps. Google: "If you mark a business as permanently closed, your Business Profile may still appear on Search and Maps for users who search for it. It clearly shows that your business is closed." Yelp: "Businesses that close will stay listed on Yelp". Do not delete the row from your record: set its status to closed, so you know the listing exists and what it says.

You visit customers and have no shopfront

Google's rule for a service-area business: "If you don't serve customers at your business address: Remove your address and only enter your service area." Google allows up to 20 service areas, set by city, postcode or another area you serve. Check the other platforms in your record for the same setting, so a home address is not published where it need not be.

What the evidence says accurate listings are worth

Directories take up room in local search results. BrightLocal's Business Listings Visibility Study (page dated 15 October 2024) recorded the first ten organic results of 800 manual Google searches for local businesses in 20 US cities, and found: "Business directories make up almost a third of local-intent organic search results overall (31%)." That figure describes that sample of 800 searches. In other words, the directories an audit checks are among the sites a customer can land on first.

Customers notice wrong listings. BrightLocal's Business Listings Trust Report (page dated 8 September 2021) surveyed 1,141 US consumers in August 2021: "Finding incorrect information on a business listing would stop 63% of consumers from using that business". The same report says 85% had found incorrect or incomplete information on a business listing in the last year. Both figures come from the same group of consumers at the same time: the 85% is what people said had happened to them, and the 63% is what they said they would do, in one US survey from 2021.

Local SEO specialists rate listing consistency. Whitespark's Local Search Ranking Factors survey (published 6 November 2025) asked 47 experts to score 187 factors. Among the factors on its list, by their names on the page, are "HTML NAP Matching GBP NAP" and "Consistency of Citations on Primary Search Engines (Google Maps, Bing Maps, Apple Maps)". Both are about the same name, address and phone number appearing in more than one place. This is a survey of opinions, not a measurement. BrightLocal and Whitespark both sell local SEO software and citation services.

How listings fit with the rest of local search is covered in our guide to local SEO strategies.

When to check again

Check again after any change to the master record: a move, a new name, a new number, new hours or a closed branch.

Check again after a cleanup, because fixes take time to appear. Whitespark says of its own listings service that typically about 30% of its submissions are live when it sends its report, and more trickle in over the next few months. So re-open the listings you asked to be fixed and update the status column as each one changes.

Apple's guide puts it simply: "You should keep location information updated often, so customers can see the latest hours of operation, special offers and more."

Doing it yourself or paying for a citation audit service

Doing a citation audit yourself costs time rather than money: writing the record, running the searches, and making one login or one request per listing. A tool shortens the finding step. BrightLocal's page says Citation Tracker does not change the listings for you; Moz Local and Semrush send your details to the directories in their own networks. Anything outside a tool's network is fixed through each platform's own route.

A citation audit and cleanup service does the finding and the requests for you, then hands over a report. Two vendors publish their prices, read on 4 October 2026. Whitespark's Listings Service has "Packages starting at $20 | one-time fee", with cleanup-and-building packages at $399, $599 and $999 per location, shown for the USA. It hands over "a detailed report with links to all your listings, along with usernames & passwords, listing statuses, and notes from the team", and it states plainly: "We do not guarantee live listings." BrightLocal's Citation Builder starts at "$3.20 per listing (or as low as $2 with bulk credits)".

Whichever service you consider, ask four things before you pay:

1. Which sites will it check?
2. What does it hand over: the list of listing URLs, the logins, the status of each?
3. Do you own the logins afterwards?
4. How does it report listings that were still pending when the report was sent?

Some services also submit your record to data aggregators, which pass business details on to other sites. The set of aggregators has changed over time; BrightLocal noted on 19 December 2019: "Acxiom has officially retired its directory, meaning we no longer submit to it as one of our big four data aggregators. Foursquare has taken its place." The citation building guide covers them.

Where listings sit in a link audit

Many listings carry a link to your website, so they show up in a list of your backlinks next to links from articles. In a link audit for a local business, mark which referring pages are listings: your citation record tells you. A directory link is one of the different types of backlinks, and an unlinked listing is a brand mention. When the citation record is current, the listing entries in a backlink list are already named and dated, which makes the link audit quicker to read.

The same habit of checking against a record runs through our own work on links. Before a placement goes out we check the HTTP status code the client's target URL returns. After publication our QA team checks that the page is live, the link sits in the body copy, the anchor and target URL match the order and the page is indexable, and only then is the URL reported to the dashboard, where each live URL can be exported as a file: our placements come with a record too. That post-publication check is part of our quality assurance standard.

Frequently asked questions

What is a citation audit?

A citation audit is a check of every online listing of a business against one correct record, followed by fixing the listings that are wrong and removing the duplicates. The record covers the business name, address, phone number, website and opening hours, and each listing ends up marked correct, wrong or duplicate.

How do you do a citation audit?

Write the master record first, then find the listings with a tool or by searching for the business name, postcode and phone number. Record each listing with its URL and status, fix or remove it through each platform's own route, and re-check the listings you asked to be fixed.

What is citation audit and cleanup?

The audit finds the wrong and duplicate listings; the cleanup is the requests and edits that correct them. The two are often sold together as one service, and the finished job hands over a report listing each listing URL with its status.

What does a citation audit service cost?

Published prices read on 4 October 2026: Whitespark's listings packages start at $20 per location as a one-time fee, and its cleanup-and-building packages at $399 per location in the USA, and BrightLocal's Citation Builder starts at $3.20 per listing. Ask any service what it hands over, and whether you own the logins, before you pay.

Which citation audit tool should you use?

Use any tool that covers the sites your customers use and exports the list of listings it finds. BrightLocal Citation Tracker, Whitespark Local Citation Finder, Moz Local and Semrush Listing Management each publish what they cover and what they cost, so read their pages and pick on fit.

What do you do about duplicate listings?

Use the platform's own merge or report route. Google takes merge requests through a suggestion on Google Maps, Facebook may let you merge two Pages that share a name, an address and a Business Manager account, and Yelp has a duplicate report on the page's Edit link. Smaller directories usually take a correction request by email.