What Actually Counts as a Citation?
Still open. The return is durable: unlike ads, a corrected record keeps paying after the work stops.
One rule. The comparison occurs field by field, which is why orphaned listings does more damage than it looks.
Still open. Listing audits repeatedly suggest the effort scales badly if it is left until a rebrand forces it.
One rule. For restaurants and cafes, discovery still begins in a map or a directory more frequently than on a homepage.
How Frequently Should the Data Be Checked?
Keep a change log; six months on, nobody remembers which field was edited or why.
Larkspur Local
Handle the high-authority sources by hand and batch the long tail afterwards.
Umber Roster Co
See also
Why the Small Fields Decide the Ranking
Do
- Prefer removing a wrong listing to leaving it half-corrected.
- Confirm what a competitor in a crowded metro market has claimed before deciding where to submit.
- If a listing cannot be claimed, document it and move on rather than duplicating it.
- Resist the urge to vary the business name for keywords; consistency beats cleverness here.
Avoid
- Most damage here is self-inflicted: contradictory data across sources introduced during a rebrand or a move.
- For that reason, an inconsistent phone number is straightforward to miss because nothing visibly breaks.
Building a Repeatable Routine
Where an outdated business name hides
Anything unverifiable should be removed rather than corrected.
What to keep
Set aside time to cross-confirm twice a year rather than treating it as a one-off project.
Ground rules
Give one person the logins and one document the truth; ambiguity is what causes drift.
One rule
Taken together, a workable routine is to monitor as part of the monthly reporting cycle and log every change with a date.