Business Listings Audit Checklist: Find and Fix Wrong Listings

By the Expert Reputation team · Updated October 26, 2026

A listings audit is a structured search for every place your business appears online, followed by a check of each listing's name, address, phone, hours, categories, website and photos. Most businesses find at least a few surprises: an old address, a duplicate listing, or a profile someone else claimed years ago. This checklist walks you through the audit in the order that matters most to customers.

Before you start: write down your correct details

You can't audit against nothing. Before you search, write one "source of truth" record and keep it in a shared document:

The "old details" row is what makes the audit work. Most problems hide under information you no longer use. For background on why this matters, see NAP consistency.

Step 1: Search for yourself the way customers do

Run each of these searches on Google, and on Apple Maps and Bing if you can. Note every listing you find.

• [ ] Your business name plus city
• [ ] Your business name alone
• [ ] Your main phone number, with and without dashes
• [ ] Every old phone number
• [ ] Every old address
• [ ] Every former business name, plus any DBA or legal name
• [ ] For practices: each practitioner's name plus city
• [ ] Your main service plus city (for example, "auto body shop [City]"), to see how your listing shows next to competitors

Keep a simple log: site, URL, what's wrong, who controls it.

Step 2: Check the major platforms

These are the listings most customers see. Check each one directly, not just in search results.

Step 3: Audit each listing field by field

For every listing you found, check each field against your source-of-truth record.

Name

• [ ] Matches your real-world name exactly
• [ ] No added keywords, cities, taglines or phone numbers
• [ ] No "LLC" or "Inc." unless your signage and documents use it

Google's guidelines say that adding unnecessary information to your name "isn't permitted, and could result in the suspension of your Business Profile."

Address and service area

• [ ] Correct street address and suite, in your chosen format
• [ ] Map pin sits on your actual building or entrance
• [ ] Service-area businesses that don't serve customers at their address have it hidden on Google, as Google's guidelines direct
• [ ] No P.O. box or virtual office address

Phone

• [ ] Main local number on every major listing
• [ ] No disconnected or retired numbers
• [ ] Extra numbers only where you intend them

Hours

• [ ] Regular hours match what you actually keep
• [ ] Special hours set for upcoming holidays
• [ ] No old seasonal or temporary hours still showing

Google suggests confirming your hours for official holidays "even if they're the same as your regular hours," so customers know your hours are accurate. Google's special hours page says special hours are for adjusted hours or closures of up to 6 days in a row, and that a business closed for 7 or more days in a row, or for an unknown period, should be marked temporarily closed.

Categories

• [ ] Primary category is the most specific one that describes your core business
• [ ] Additional categories describe what your business is, not every service it offers

Google's guidelines say to choose categories that complete the statement "This business IS a" rather than "this business HAS a," and to use "as few categories as possible."

Website

• [ ] Link works and uses https://
• [ ] Points to the correct page (for multi-location businesses, usually the location page)
• [ ] No links to an old domain or a third-party landing page

Photos

• [ ] Logo and cover photo are current
• [ ] Exterior photo shows your current building and signage
• [ ] No photos of a former location, old branding or former staff

Google says photos "should be in focus and well lit" and "represent reality." It also says that if a cover photo is low quality, a user-submitted photo may be selected instead.

Step 4: Hunt for duplicates and closed listings

Duplicates and wrong closures cause the most confusion, and you often won't find them unless you look.

• [ ] Search for each old address and phone number on Google Maps
• [ ] Look for listings with slightly different names (with and without "Inc.," old names, practitioner names)
• [ ] Look for listings marked "Permanently closed" or "Temporarily closed" that shouldn't be
• [ ] Check whether any duplicate has reviews you want to keep

Google says you can have "only one Business Profile for each business," and "if a profile is considered a duplicate, it won't show on Google Search or Maps." If you accidentally created a duplicate, Google says you can remove it "without affecting your verified listing." To combine two profiles that both exist on Maps, Google says to report a suggestion on Google Maps. When profiles merge, Google says "reviews are combined, but replies to reviews may be lost." See duplicate listings for the full process.

Step 5: Check who has access

• [ ] Every Google profile has at least one owner who works at the business today
• [ ] Former employees and former agencies removed or downgraded
• [ ] Each person uses their own Google Account, not a shared password

Google's help center says owners can add or remove users and delete the profile, while managers "can't add or remove users or remove the profile." New owners and managers have to wait 7 days before they can remove other users or transfer primary ownership, so plan access changes ahead of time.

Step 6: Review Google's changes to your profile

• [ ] Check the profile editor for information Google changed (Google says this appears in blue)
• [ ] Respond to suggested-edit notifications

Google says that when it notifies you of a suggested edit, you have 4 days to accept or reject it. If you don't respond, it "may automatically publish the update if it is supported by other publicly available information, such as your business website." That's one more reason to keep your website accurate.

What to fix first

Not every problem is equally urgent. Work through your log in this order:

The shortcut

Running this audit by hand takes a while, especially for a multi-location business or a practice with several providers. If you'd rather start with a list of what's wrong, the Free Listings Scan checks how your business name, address and phone appear across directories. Either way, keep your source-of-truth record current and repeat the audit after every move, rebrand or phone change.