Local SEO

A managed Google Business Profile is the surface where a business can show owner-added facts such as its opening hours and location. Google says complete profile information helps customers understand what the business does, where it is and when they can visit.¹²

Public business listings are one part of a wider information surface. Google says Business Profile information can come from crawled official-website content, licensed third-party data, user-contributed facts such as addresses and phone numbers, user photos and reviews, and Google's own interactions with a local place or business.⁵ A public record can therefore repeat a business fact, introduce an error or give Google another source to interpret.

Google's additional guidelines for authorized representatives say a Business Profile's phone number and website should be the single authoritative phone number and website for the business. The owner must be able to verify them, and the owner must own and manage the website content.⁴ For a profile managed by an outside representative, those requirements identify the business-controlled reference points when records disagree. To check whether those records agree, use the local business NAP audit checklist. It starts with one approved value for each field, compares that canonical record with the Google Business Profile and public sources, and logs the observed value, URL, read date, owner, action, next check, and status.

Multiple locations add a naming and category problem to the same three surfaces. Google says consistent names and categories across locations help customers identify a business on Google Maps and Search. Its guidance allows a different name when a business's real-world representation consistently varies by location, and allows distinct sub-brand or department names when each is applied consistently.⁶