Local citation building: keep your business details right everywhere

What counts as a citation, and what Google says

A citation is any page that shows your business name alongside an address, phone number or website. They come in two kinds, and the kind decides how you fix one.

Structured citations sit in fields you can usually claim and edit yourself: a directory entry, a map listing, a social profile, a review platform page, a government register. Unstructured citations are mentions inside someone else's content: a local news story, a supplier's stockist page, a council or chamber of commerce page, a club's sponsor list, an association newsletter. There's no login for those. A wrong number on a supplier's page stays wrong until you ask the site owner to change it, which is why the audit below logs who controls every listing, not just what's wrong with it.

Google doesn't publish a rule about citations. What its Business Profile Help does publish is where profile details come from: crawled web content such as the business's own website, licensed data from third parties, facts contributed by users, and Google's own interactions with the business. Its local ranking tips add that prominence is partly based on how many websites link to your business, and that there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.

Two things follow. First, a directory listing is a copy of your details that Google and customers may read, so its accuracy matters more than its link. Google's spam policies list low-quality directory or bookmark site links among their examples of link spam, so signing up to directories nobody visits, just for the link, is a habit to drop. Second, accuracy beats volume. A customer who finds a dead number has no reason to keep trying when the next business is one tap away. A short list of listings that agree is easier to keep right than a long list that doesn't.

Write one master record before you touch a listing

Start by writing down the one correct version of every detail. This master record is what every listing gets checked against, and it's the first thing you change when the business changes. A shared spreadsheet does the job. Run several locations? Give each one its own row and its own owner; planning multi location SEO ownership covers who signs off what. The record should hold:

• Legal name and ABN, exactly as ABN Lookup shows them.
• Trading name, exactly as on your signage and invoices. Google's Business Profile guidelines say the name should reflect your real-world name as used consistently on your storefront, website and stationery, so extra keywords stay out.
• Street address in one format, with the unit number, street type and suburb written the same way every time.
• Storefront or service area. Google's guidelines say a service-area business should hide its address from customers, so decide once and apply it everywhere.
• One primary phone number. Google's guidelines say the number must be under the business's direct control, and ask for a local number instead of a central call centre line whenever possible.
• One website address: the same https version, with or without www, on every listing, pointing at a page that will still exist next year.
• Regular hours, and how you handle public holidays.
• A category map: your Google primary category, then the closest match on each directory's own category list, written down so nobody guesses differently next time.
• A short description in two lengths, one sentence and one paragraph, so every directory gets the same wording cut to fit.
• Who holds each login, and which email address it's tied to.

Audit every version of your business that exists

Your own website is the first listing to check, since Google names a business's official website as one of its sources. Google's Organization structured data documentation lists properties such as legalName, telephone (with the country and area code) and sameAs, which points to your profiles on other sites. Markup that mirrors the master record is one more copy that agrees. For the Google profile itself, the Google Business Profile audit checklist goes field by field.

Then audit everything else in this order, logging each listing's URL, what's wrong, who can edit it and the date you checked:

1. Search Google for your business name, every former name, every phone number you've used and every past address. Old numbers often surface listings, and unstructured mentions, that a name search misses.
2. Check the platforms you control: Google Business Profile, Apple Business (which replaced Apple Business Connect in 2026) for Apple Maps, Bing Places for Business, and your social profiles.
3. Check the official registers: ABN Lookup, the ASIC business names register and any licence register your trade appears on.
4. Check review platforms and trade job platforms you've ever joined. They carry your name, number and suburb like any directory, and their notification emails need someone reading them.
5. Check your industry association's member page and the general directories your customers actually use.
6. Give each listing a status: correct, fix, claim, merge, remove or request (for unstructured mentions you can't edit).

Sort what you find: real conflicts first, formatting last

A first audit usually turns up more problems than anyone has time for in one sitting. Work through them by the harm each one does. A wrong phone number loses a call today; "St" against "Street" loses nothing. Fix anything that sends a customer to the wrong place first, and leave cosmetic differences until the listing is open for another reason.

Duplicates need care, and Google is blunt about them. Its guidelines say not to create more than one page for each location, and its help on duplicates says multiple profiles for the same business may mislead customers, are against its policies and won't show on Search or Maps. If a profile is already suspended or restricted, read Google Business Profile suspension preparation before changing anything else. Otherwise, match the fix to the case:

• A duplicate you created by mistake: Google says you can remove it without affecting your verified listing. Removal deletes its content and linked managers, so save anything worth keeping first.
• Two public profiles for one business: Google's help says to request a merge by suggesting an edit on Google Maps. Reviews combine, though replies may be lost.
• A verified profile someone else controls, like a former staff member or an old agency: request access through Google. The owner has three days to respond, and if they don't, you may get the option to claim it.
• An old location that's gone: use Suggest an edit on Google Maps to mark it closed or moved. Google reviews these edits, so allow time.
• Directory duplicates: claim the correct listing, then ask the site to remove the other. Don't create a fresh listing to get around a lost login.

When a detail changes, update in this order

Most listing errors start with a change nobody finished. The website and Google get the new details, and everything else keeps the old ones for years. Part of the reason is that listings copy each other. Google's help says it uses licensed data from third parties, and Microsoft says Bing Places can import a listing from Google Business Profile, keeping attributes such as the name, hours and contact details. Most Australian directories don't publish where their data comes from, so assume any listing can be copied from any other, and fix the sources you control first. Otherwise a stale copy can re-seed the error you just corrected.

Treat each change as a small job with a fixed order. A website rebuild counts too: put listing URLs in the website migration and SEO handover plan, so listings don't end up pointing at pages that no longer exist.

1. Update the master record and note the date of the change.
2. Update the official registers. business.gov.au says the ATO, ASIC and the ABR require you to report changes within 28 days.
3. Update your website: contact page, footer, structured data and location pages. Google says that if you don't respond to a suggested edit, it may publish the edit when other public information, such as your website, supports it. An out-of-date site can end up backing the wrong version.
4. Update Google Business Profile. Google reviews edits before they go live, and says changes usually show in about 10 minutes but can take up to 30 days. A verified business that moves must verify again, and a name change may need verification again too.
5. Update Apple Business and Bing Places. If you use Bing's import from Google, finish the Google change first or the import copies old details.
6. Work down the table: industry listings, review and job platforms, general directories, then requests to the owners of unstructured mentions.
7. Recheck every listing after 30 days, once Google's longest stated delay has passed.

Worked example: a plumber in Caloundra moves premises

This example is hypothetical, and every detail in it is illustrative. Say a plumbing business in Caloundra moves from a home office to a small industrial unit in Caloundra West, and drops its old landline for a single mobile number. It has a Google profile, an Apple Maps place card, a Bing listing, a Facebook page, a trade association member page, two general directory listings and a supplier stockist page that names it.

Day one: the owner updates the master record with the new address, the new number and the change date, and marks the old landline as retired. Within 28 days they update the ABR and the ASIC business names register, then the website footer, contact page and structured data.

Next comes Google. Because the business now has premises customers can visit, the owner decides whether to show the address or keep running as a service-area business, records that decision in the master record, and applies it on every platform. Google asks for verification again after the move, so the owner waits for that before touching Apple Business and Bing Places.

Then the owner works down the audit log. A few illustrative rows from the log, part way through the job:

Stop the record drifting, and where tools fit

Unstructured mentions take a polite, specific request. In the example above, the owner emails the supplier: "Your stockist page at (page address) lists us with our old landline. Our number is now (new number) and our address is (new address). Could you update it when you next edit the page? Our ABN is (ABN) if you need to confirm it's us." Quote the page URL and the exact wrong text, give the correct details once, and keep it short. Log the date sent, and if nothing changes after a follow-up, leave it: most of these pages get fixed eventually or stop being read.

Listings drift even when you change nothing, because other people can edit them. Google's help on profile updates says it uses information from users and licensed content, and when a suggested edit needs your review, you get 4 days to accept or reject it. Google may also send automated calls, texts or WhatsApp messages to the verified phone number on your profile, and says your answers may be used to update it, so whoever answers your phone should know that. Apple works from the customer side: its Apple Business guide says customers can report a closed location from your place card, Apple reviews the report and edits the card, and you get an email when Apple changes a location's name, status or hours.

Tools can carry some of this load, but they do different jobs. Know which job you're buying before you sign:

• One named owner for the master record, plus a backup.
• Logins held on an email address the business owns, not a staff member's or an agency's.
• Google and Apple notifications routed to someone who reads them, and review platform messages answered.
• A monthly look at the platforms you control and a quarterly audit of the rest.
• A change log, so the next person knows what changed, when, and which listings still wait on a request.
• A check of what AI tools say about the business at each quarterly audit; the guide to AI answers and accurate company facts covers how to test and correct them.