Off-Site & Authority · 4.22
NAP Consistency
Making sure your business name, address, and phone number are identical everywhere they appear online — not a slightly different phone number on one old directory listing.
Why this matters
The customer’s side
If they find an outdated or wrong phone number somewhere online and it doesn't connect, most people won't hunt for the correct one — they'll simply assume the business is unreliable or has closed, and move on.
The search engine’s side
Measured as a genuine local ranking factor
Citation consistency is measured as a genuine local ranking factor — mismatches quietly damage the trust search engines place in your business's legitimacy.
How to check yours
Method 1 — Search manually
quick, and catches the listings that show up on the first page or two.
- 1.Google your exact business name.
- 2.Note every listing that appears — directories, review sites, local news mentions.
- 3.Check the name, address, and phone number on each matches exactly.
Method 2 — Moz Local's free listing check
checks major directories directly, rather than relying on which ones happen to rank well enough for you to find by searching.
- 1.Go to moz.com/local and enter your business name and postcode.
- 2.Review the list of listings found, and the consistency score for each.
How to fix what you find
A handful of mismatches on major platforms
correct these directly yourself — log into Google Business Profile, Facebook, Bing Places, and Apple Business Connect, and update the details on each.
Mismatches on directories you don't control
most legitimate directories have a “claim this listing” or “suggest an edit” option — claim it where you can, or contact the site directly where you can't.
A large number of scattered, old listings
this becomes a genuinely time-consuming manual job — a paid citation-management tool like Moz Local or BrightLocal can push corrected details out to dozens of directories at once, worth it once the number gets unmanageable to fix by hand.
Keeping on top of it
Details drift out of sync on their own over time, even when nobody's changed anything on purpose. Worth a full check quarterly.
How Reyse handles this
Done With You
we run the audit and give you the exact list of what to fix, and where.
Done For You
we monitor and correct this directly, ongoing.