NAP Consistency: Managing Business Information Across the Web

Name, Address and Phone

Name. Use the name your customers see. Google’s business guidelines say the name “should reflect your business’s real-world name, as used consistently on your storefront, website, stationery, and as known to customers.” Pick one form, with or without a legal suffix such as LLC, and use it everywhere you control. (On the Google profile itself, Google lists “irrelevant legal terms (e.g. LLC, LTD, INC)” among things a name must not include.)

Address. Every element: number, street, suite or unit, city, state and ZIP code. Choose one way of writing it and keep it, for example “Suite 200” every time, rather than switching among “Suite 200”, “Ste 200” and “#200”.

Phone. One primary local number, written in one format. Google asks for “a local phone number instead of a central call center helpline number whenever possible” and says “The phone number must be under the direct control of the business.”

Writing abbreviations the same way everywhere is a matter of tidiness and of matching records; the changes that do real harm are a wrong phone number, an old address after a move, or a second listing for the same location.

Write Down the Canonical Version

Before correcting anything, record the exact version every listing should use:

Keep this document where anyone who creates or edits a listing can find it, and have them copy from it rather than type from memory.

Finding Your Listings

• Search for each element separately: the business name in quotes, the phone number, the street address. Searching the old address or old phone finds listings left behind after a move or change.
• Check the main platforms directly: your Google Business Profile, Apple Business Connect, Bing Places, Facebook, Yelp, and the directories and associations specific to your industry.
• Use a listings tool to scan many directories at once; it can find listings you wouldn’t think to check, and it shows which values differ from your canonical version.

Record each listing in a spreadsheet: the URL, the name, address and phone as shown, whether you control it, and what needs to change.

Fixing What You Find

On Google, a profile you don’t manage can be fixed by suggesting an edit; Google’s information page says that if you believe a profile is inaccurate “you can suggest an edit or flag it for removal.” For listings fed by aggregators, correcting the source record keeps the aggregator from sending the wrong value back after you fix the directory. Start with your Google profile, then your website, which is the one source on Google’s list you control outright, then the directories in your field.

Building new listings is covered in local citations.

Your Website and Structured Data

Your own website is one of the sources Google names, so it should carry the canonical NAP in visible text, for example in the footer and on the contact or location page. If you use LocalBusiness structured data, its name, address and telephone values should match what the page shows. Multi-location businesses give each location its own page, with its own NAP and markup.

Multiple Locations

Each location needs its own NAP, used the same way across every platform:

• Names: the brand plus a distinguishing element only where it’s part of how the location is known; Google’s name rules exclude marketing taglines, store codes and the other items they list.
• Addresses: locations in the same building or center need their suite numbers everywhere.
• Phones: each location’s own number, so calls and listings point to the right place.

A master sheet with one row per location keeps the canonical versions together. Managing many profiles is covered in multi-location SEO.

Call Tracking Without Breaking NAP

Tracking numbers on listings put a second phone number into circulation. Two ways to measure calls while keeping one number in your listings:

• Keep the primary number on the Google profile, your website’s visible text and the main directories, and use tracking numbers in paid ads, where they don’t become part of your listings.
• On the website, use dynamic number insertion that keeps the primary number in the HTML and markup and swaps it in the browser only for visitors arriving from tracked campaigns. Serve everyone the same page: Google’s spam policies define cloaking as “presenting different content to users and search engines with the intent to manipulate search rankings and mislead users.”

Google’s profile also lets you add “up to 2 more phone numbers”, per its editing help, while the primary number stays the one in your listings.

When Your Details Change

A move or a new phone number is the moment inconsistency starts. Update in this order:

1. Your Google Business Profile.
2. Your website, including structured data.
3. Data aggregators, or the listings service that feeds them.
4. Every listing in your spreadsheet, one by one.
5. A search for the old address and old number after the changes have had time to spread, to find the listings you missed.

Profile work itself is covered in Google Business Profile optimization.

When the spreadsheet holds more fixes than you have time for, sort them by what reaches a customer: a wrong phone number, an old address or a duplicate listing goes ahead of a “Ste 200” that should read “Suite 200”.