Entity and trust · Branch E.C, Local and operational source of truth
E-08 NAP and local business profiles must be managed from one master source
Name, address, phone, hours, category and service area must be consistent across the website, Google Business Profile, Bing Places and important listings.
- Scope
- Local business
- Priority
- Gate. A FAIL stops publish or launch.
- Quality bucket
- Entity and trust
- Legacy coverage
- GEO-43, GEO-57
Why it matters
A wrong phone number, address or opening time sends customers to the wrong place or to a dead line, and the business loses the visit or the call. Search engines and AI answer engines that find different details on the website and on listings may show the wrong ones or trust none of them. A single master record stops those differences appearing in the first place.
How to implement
- Build one master record holding name, address, phone, hours, category and service area.
- Feed the website footer, contact page and schema from that record.
- Update Google Business Profile and Bing Places from it, and correct old directory entries where you can.
- Remove duplicate locations and profiles, and check that each profile links to the right landing page.
- Write a channel update checklist for moves, phone changes, holidays and temporary closures, and audit listings every month.
Checklist
- Create a master business data record.
- Manage the website footer, contact page and schema from it.
- Keep Google Business Profile and Bing Places up to date.
- Correct old directory entries wherever possible.
- Create a channel update checklist for moves and phone number changes.
- Keep name, address, phone, hours and category current.
- Update holiday and temporary closure information on time.
- Keep the real service area accurate.
- Clean up duplicate locations and profiles.
- Check that the website URL matches the landing page on the business profile.
How to audit
- Maintain a NAP audit sheet.
- Run branded local searches.
- Spot check calls and addresses.
- Run a monthly local listing audit.
- Test the phone number and the directions.
How UltimateSEO checks this automatically
Partly automated. Where LocalBusiness schema exists the crawler compares NAP in schema with visible text; agreement with Google Business Profile and other listings is confirmed by the business. The crawl gives a signal; a person decides the final state with business evidence.
States used: PASS, FAIL, UNKNOWN, NOT_APPLICABLE or BLOCKED. UNKNOWN is never shown as a pass. How states work.
Sources
Part of The UltimateSEO Framework v4.1, revised 2026-10-07. Evidence states, control states and the publish gate are explained on the hub.