What should the correct business record contain?
NAP means name, address, and phone, but a useful master record also includes the website, trading name, service area, hours, categories, and an owner-approved description. Separate your legal name from the name genuinely used with customers. Keep a note of former names, previous locations, and old phone numbers so you can recognize legacy records.
For a genuine service-area business that does not receive customers at its base, respect the platform's address-display rules and the owner's privacy. Consistency does not mean publishing a private home address everywhere. It means representing the same real business accurately in the fields and formats each legitimate platform permits.
Which listings should be fixed first?
- Primary customer destinations: the business website, the relevant Maps/profile record, and major places where customers actually find or review the business.
- High-impact errors: a wrong phone number, closed-business label, outdated location, or listing pointing to another company's website.
- Relevant industry and local sources: genuine trade directories, associations, chambers, and local profiles appropriate to the business.
- Old and duplicate records: profiles for previous names, moves, or redundant listings that may need a platform-specific correction rather than a new submission.
Do not buy a large directory count without knowing which sources matter, whether the listings can be edited, and what ongoing fees or account ownership are involved. A smaller set of accurate, relevant records can be a more useful project than a long list of low-quality submissions.
How do you work through a duplicate or incorrect listing?
Save the listing URL and the exact error. Confirm that it represents your business rather than a similarly named company or a legitimate separate location. Find the claim, edit, support, or duplicate-report process for that platform. Use the owner's approved information and keep a record of the request, date, supporting evidence, and response.
A closed location and a moved business are not always the same situation. Neither is an unauthorized duplicate and a profile controlled by a previous provider. Avoid issuing broad deletion requests until you understand whether reviews, history, and ownership could be affected. Do not share passwords through a public form; use delegated access where the platform supports it.
| Record | What to capture |
|---|---|
| Listing | Platform, exact URL, and the real business it represents. |
| Problem | Incorrect name, phone, address display, hours, website, status, or duplicate relationship. |
| Action | Claim, supported edit, documented correction request, or specialist review. |
| Verification | Request date, response, live recheck, and any unresolved issue. |
How long does cleanup take?
You can control the quality of the correction request, not every platform's review queue or data supplier. Some changes appear after a direct edit; others require ownership checks or support. Keep unresolved items visible rather than marking the entire project finished because a submission was sent.
Recheck after a move, phone-number change, rebrand, or change of provider. New errors can come from an old source being reused. The objective is not to keep the business in a permanent submission cycle; it is to maintain accurate facts in the sources that support customers and discovery.
Is citation cleanup the same as reputation repair?
No. Correcting listing facts is different from responding to genuine reviews, requesting policy-based removal, or addressing an unwanted page ranking for a business or person's name. Do not price a serious reputation project as routine NAP cleanup or promise that changing citations will remove a negative article.
The $48 profile foundation includes business-information and NAP consistency direction. Hands-on corrections, ownership disputes, large inventories, and unusual cases need an agreed task list. Bring the known bad URLs to a review so the recommendation can separate ordinary cleanup from a larger project.
Questions before you buy
Should I delete every old listing?
No. First confirm the business, location, ownership, reviews, and history involved. Use the platform's appropriate move, correction, or duplicate process instead of indiscriminate deletion.
Do I have to publish my home address everywhere?
No. Follow each platform's eligibility and address-display rules. A qualifying service-area business may hide its operating address from customers. Do not substitute a fake address or expose private information simply to match a spreadsheet.
Does the $48 foundation include unlimited manual listing corrections?
No unlimited correction scope is stated. The published foundation includes business-identity and NAP consistency direction. Confirm the exact hands-on tasks, number of sources, access requirements, and any separate project work.
Will NAP cleanup remove a bad article from search?
No. Listing consistency work is not a guarantee of content removal or negative-result suppression. A reputation problem needs a separate review of the actual source and issue.
Sources and scope
Published prices are service-menu references, not universal market rates. Examples are illustrative unless explicitly identified otherwise. Final scope and outside costs require confirmation.
A practical next step
Start with the problem, not a bigger bill.
Bring your website, the issue you want fixed, the tools you already use, and your budget. We can scope the right next step before you choose a service.