Citations & NAP consistency, explained simply.

What a citation is

Any place on the internet that lists your business name, address and phone number - Yelp, Facebook, Apple Maps, Yellow Pages, industry directories, the local chamber site. Google cross-references these listings against your Google Business Profile to confirm you are who you say you are, where you say you are.

Why inconsistency hurts

Say your GBP says "123 Main Street, Suite B" but Yelp says "123 Main St Ste B" with an old phone number. A human reads those as the same business. Google's confidence system isn't a human - conflicting data across the web reads as uncertainty, and uncertain listings get suppressed in favor of businesses whose data agrees everywhere. I've seen citation chaos alone account for a full page of ranking difference.

The cleanup process

• Write your one canonical NAP: exact name, exact address format, one phone number
• Search your brand + city and your old phone number - build a list of every listing
• Fix the majors first: Facebook, Apple Maps, Bing Places, Yelp, BBB, industry directories
• Claim listings so you control them going forward; request removal of dead duplicates
• Re-check quarterly - the internet grows listings back like weeds

The trap: moving or rebranding

Changed your phone number or address in the last five years? Your old data is still live on dozens of sites, quietly splitting Google's confidence in half. That's the highest-priority cleanup there is - and the one nobody notices until rankings stall for "no reason."