How to find the business listings you didn't know you had

A wrong number on a page you have never seen still rings nowhere. The customer does not think "their listing is out of date". They think you have closed.

Here is the part most SEO advice gets wrong, so it is worth saying plainly. Google's local ranking page never mentions directories, citations or matching details across other websites. It names relevance, distance and prominence, and describes prominence as links to your site and the reviews you have.

What Google does say is this: Google says its profiles are built partly from licensed third-party data and from crawled web content, which is the honest reason wrong details elsewhere reach your profile. You can read where profile information comes from on Google's own page about it.

So the reason to clean this up is not a ranking promise. It is that a wrong detail out there becomes a wrong detail on your profile, and a customer who cannot reach you.

Searching your business name finds the listings you already know about. These find the ones you don't.

• Your phone number in quotes. The single best search there is. A number is copied exactly, so it survives on pages that got your name wrong.
• Your old phone number in quotes. Every number you have ever used, including a tracking number an agency once set up.
• Your old address in quotes. If you have moved, this is where the ghosts live.
• Your business name with and without the LLC, and with any old trading name.
• Your street address with your postcode, which catches listings that shortened your name.

Run each one and keep going for three or four pages of results, not one. The wrong listings are rarely at the top.

Then check the places that hold data whether you claimed them or not: Google, Apple, Bing, Yelp, the Better Business Bureau, your chamber, and whatever directory is big in your industry.

One sheet, one row per listing. It sounds like admin and it is the difference between fixing this once and fixing it every year.

• The site and the link to the listing.
• What it says for name, address and phone.
• What is wrong with it.
• Claimed or not, and the email it is under if you know.
• Duplicate? Mark these. They get their own job.

Also write down the version of your details that is correct, once, at the top. Every fix copies from that line, and nobody improvises a suite number again.

1. Your Google Business Profile first

Everything else matters less. Google says an edit is usually up to 10 minutes, and sometimes up to 30 days to review, so make the changes and do not panic when nothing moves by lunchtime.

2. Listings you can claim

Claim, correct, done. A claimed listing stays fixed. An unclaimed one drifts back.

3. Listings you cannot claim

Most sites have a "suggest an edit" or a contact form. On Google Maps that flow is documented step by step, and Google says every edit is reviewed before it appears.

4. Duplicates last

They need deciding, not just editing, and getting it wrong loses reviews. That is a separate job.

5. The name itself

While you are in there: Google's guidelines say to "Represent your business as it's consistently represented and recognized in the real world across signage, stationery, and other branding." Adding your services or your town to the name is what gets a profile suspended.

If you would rather hand the whole sweep over, that is what our listings clean-up is.

Some of the sites showing your old number never typed it in. They bought it. Two companies matter for a US business:

• Data Axle. Says a single update is sent on to its partner search engines, directories and in-car navigation systems.
• Foursquare. Says its places data reaches apps including Apple Maps, and a business can claim its own listing.

Neither company publishes which downstream sites get the data, or how long it takes to arrive. Anyone who quotes you a number for that is guessing.

Search your numbers. Write down what you find. Fix the profile, then the claimable ones, then ask the rest. Put a note in the calendar for next year.