Short answer
A citation cleanup service finds every listing that carries your business name, corrects the ones with wrong details, and merges or removes the duplicates — including the mess a previous vendor left behind. Ours starts with a $10 audit that maps the damage before you pay for any fixes, and every correction is chased weekly until the directory actually makes it. Fixes take 5–8 weeks because directories move slowly, not because we do.
A wrong listing costs more than a missing one.
Google decides who you are by cross-referencing hundreds of sources. When those sources agree, it gains confidence and rewards you with position. When they contradict each other, it does the opposite — the conflict devalues every copy of the record, including the correct one.
That is why a business with a flawless Google Business Profile can still sit outside the map pack. The profile is not the problem; the forty directories still publishing the address from three years ago are. Cleanup removes the doubt, and it usually moves rankings faster than adding new citations on top.
We audit before we touch anything
You see the full list of what is wrong before a single change is made.
We chase, we don't submit and forget
Weekly follow-up on every open ticket until the directory actually makes the edit.
Everything is verifiable
Every row in the report carries the live URL, so you can check the work yourself.
We tell you what we couldn't fix
Blocked listings are reported as blocked, with the reason — not quietly counted as done.
One business, four stories
Google Business Profile · Verified record
Harbour Dental Care
14 Quay Street, Bristol · 0117 946 0123
!
Yelp · Address from 2021
Harbour Dental Care
8 Mill Lane, Bristol · 0117 946 0123
!
Yellow Pages · Old name + old phone
Harbour Dental Practice
14 Quay St, Bristol · 0117 300 8890
!
Local directory · Duplicate of the above
Harbour Dental Care
14 Quay Street, Bristol · 0117 946 0123
Two addresses, two phone numbers, two names, one duplicate — for one dental practice.
Cleanup collapses all four into the verified record.
You probably need a cleanup if…
Any one of these leaves a trail of stale records behind it. Most businesses we audit have several.
You moved premises
Your old address is still live on dozens of directories, and some of them feed the ones you have never heard of.
Your phone number changed
Calls from directory listings are going to a number you no longer answer — and Google is reading two phone numbers for one business.
You rebranded or changed the legal name
Half the web has the old trading name, half has the new one, and Google cannot tell whether that is one business or two.
You can see duplicates of yourself
Search your business name and more than one version of you comes back — often with different reviews, hours or map pins.
An agency or franchisor built your listings
Bulk-submission tools create listings fast and wrong. Someone else's spreadsheet is now your NAP data.
Your profile is perfect, but you still don't rank
A well-optimised Google Business Profile can be held down by conflicting data everywhere else on the web.
Stage one
The audit: find every listing first.
Nothing gets touched until we know what exists. A cleanup that starts with fixing is a cleanup that misses the listings nobody thought to look for — and those are usually the ones doing the damage.
01
Manual engine sweep
We search Google, Bing and Yahoo for every permutation of your business — trading name, legal name, old name, phone number, current address and any previous ones — to surface listings that no tool indexes.
02
Tool sweep
We run the same business through Yext, BrightLocal, Moz and Ahrefs. Each covers a different slice of the directory web, and together they catch the aggregator-fed listings the engines bury.
03
Classification
Every listing found is sorted: correct, incorrect, duplicate, unclaimed, or dead. Incorrect ones are annotated with exactly which field is wrong — name, address, phone, website, category or hours.
04
The audit report
You get a spreadsheet with every listing URL, its status, what is wrong with it, and what can be done about it — including which sites charge to make the edit and how much.
Stage two
The cleanup: listing by listing.
This is slow, unglamorous work and there is no tool that does it properly. Some sites hand you the keys in thirty seconds; others need a support ticket, evidence, and a polite reminder every week for a month.
01
Claim and update instantly
Many directories let a business be claimed and edited on the spot. Those are corrected the same week, in an account that belongs to you.
02
Raise a ticket for the rest
Where there is no self-serve claim, the change has to be made by the site's own admins. We open a support request with the verified details and the evidence they ask for.
03
Follow up every week
Tickets go quiet. We chase each open request weekly until the listing is corrected — this is the part that makes cleanup slow, and the part most providers quietly skip.
04
Merge and remove duplicates
Duplicates are merged where the platform supports merging, and submitted for removal or suppression where it does not, so one record survives per platform.
05
Report the before and after
You get the original audit back with each row updated: fixed, pending with the site, or blocked — and if blocked, why, with the URL so you can verify every claim we make.
What the calendar looks like
Days 1–3
Audit runs. Every listing found, classified and reported.
Week 1
Instant-claim sites corrected. Support tickets opened on the rest.
Weeks 2–8
Weekly follow-up on every open ticket until each directory makes the change.
On resolution
Before / after report delivered, with the status and URL of every listing.
Five to eight weeks is normal, and a few take longer. The delay is not our queue — it is the directories’ support teams, and we have no lever on them beyond asking again every week. We would rather tell you that up front than sell you a fortnight and miss it.
Cleanup packages.
One-time costs, no subscription. Start with the audit if you just want to know how bad it is — or go straight to a fixing package and we’ll audit first anyway, then work the list.
Listings we fix
Deep audit (Google, Bing, Yahoo)
Yext, BrightLocal, Moz & Ahrefs sweep
Correct / incorrect / duplicate report
Paid-site list with costs
Instant claim & update
Support tickets to site admins
Weekly follow-up until resolved
Duplicate merge & removal
Old address & phone suppression
Before / after consistency report
Typical turnaround
Basic$10audit only
None — audit only
3 days
Most popularStandard$25fix up to 25 listings
Up to 25
5–8 weeks
Premium$50fix up to 50 listings
Up to 50
5–8 weeks
More than 50 bad listings, or several locations?
Add more listings at checkout in 25s and 50s, or send us the business and we’ll quote the whole clean-up.
One-time prices · free listings only — directories that charge to edit are listed for you with their cost
Where we need you.
Four things in a cleanup cannot be done by us alone, and we would rather you knew before you ordered than hear it as an excuse afterwards. None of them take much of your time — but they do need a reply.
Everything else — the searching, the classifying, the claiming, the tickets, the weekly chasing, the reporting — is ours, and it is the bulk of the work.
Paid directories
Our cleanup covers free listings. Some directories charge a subscription before they will let anyone edit the data. We identify those, send you the URL and the exact cost, and you decide — the payment has to come from your own method, not ours.
Social profiles
Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn cannot be edited from outside the account. Either give us access, or we send you the exact changes and you make them in five minutes.
Google Business Profile
If the problem is on your GBP itself, resolving it may need Google account access. Often we will simply tell you what to change — that is usually faster and safer than handing over a Google login.
Phone verification
Some directories verify by calling or texting the business number. Only you can answer that call. We schedule those with you so nothing stalls for a week over a missed PIN.
Clean up first, then build.
New citations built on top of contradictory old ones just add volume to an argument Google is already losing. Once the record is consistent, every new listing reinforces it instead of muddying it — which is why our citation building packages open with an audit too.
Citation cleanup — FAQ.
The questions clients ask before they order, answered honestly.
What is citation cleanup?
Citation cleanup is the process of finding every online listing that mentions your business and making them all agree. That means correcting wrong names, addresses and phone numbers, merging or removing duplicate listings, claiming records nobody owns, and closing listings for locations you have left. The goal is a single consistent version of your business everywhere Google looks.
Why is a wrong listing worse than no listing at all?
A missing citation is a gap. A wrong one is a contradiction. When Google finds two addresses or two phone numbers for the same business name, it does not average them — it loses confidence in both, and that uncertainty shows up as a lower position in the local pack. Cleaning up conflicting data often moves rankings faster than building anything new.
What is the difference between the audit and the fixing packages?
The $10 Basic package is an audit only: we find every listing, tell you which are correct, which are wrong and which are duplicates, and hand you the spreadsheet. Nothing is fixed at that tier. Standard ($25) and Premium ($50) include the same audit and then correct up to 25 or 50 listings for you.
How do you find all of my listings?
Two passes. First a manual sweep of Google, Bing and Yahoo across every variant of your business name, phone number, and current and previous addresses. Then a tool sweep using Yext, BrightLocal, Moz and Ahrefs, which surface aggregator-fed directories that rarely rank well enough to appear in search results. Between them we catch listings most businesses did not know existed.
Why does cleanup take 5 to 8 weeks?
Because most of it is not ours to control. Sites that allow an instant claim are fixed in the first week. Everything else has to be changed by the directory's own support staff after we raise a ticket, and they work through their queues at their own pace. We follow up weekly until each one is resolved, but some take longer than eight weeks. Anyone promising a full cleanup in days is promising something other people have to do.
Can duplicate listings be deleted completely?
Sometimes. Where a platform supports merging — Google Business Profile and several of the majors do — the duplicate is folded into the correct record and its reviews usually survive. Where merging is not supported, we request removal, and if the site refuses we suppress it by correcting its data so it stops contradicting your real listing.
What about directories that charge a fee to edit?
We handle free listings. A handful of directories require a paid subscription before anyone can change the business data. We identify each one, give you the URL and the cost, and leave the decision to you — the payment has to be made with your own method. Most cleanups have very few of these, and none of them are ranking-critical.
Do you need my Google login?
Only if the problem is inside your Google Business Profile and cannot be resolved any other way. In most cases we will tell you precisely what to change so you never hand over a Google password. The same applies to Facebook, Instagram and X: give us access if you prefer, or make the edits yourself from our list.
Will I have to do anything myself?
Occasionally, yes. Some directories verify by phoning or texting the business number, and only you can answer that. Social profiles and Google need account access or your five minutes. Everything else — the searching, the claiming, the tickets, the chasing — is ours.
How do I know whether 25 or 50 listings is enough?
Start with the audit if you are not sure. It costs $10 and tells you the exact count of incorrect and duplicate listings, so you buy the right package instead of guessing. If you go straight to a fixing package we audit first anyway, and if the damage is bigger than the tier you bought, you can add listings in blocks of 25 or 50 at checkout or afterwards.
Should I clean up before building new citations?
Almost always. Building new listings on top of contradictory old ones just adds volume to an argument Google is already losing. Fix the record first, then build — that is why our citation building packages start with an audit too.
What if a directory simply refuses to make the change?
It happens, and we tell you when it does rather than quietly counting it as done. The report marks that listing as blocked with the reason and the URL. Where a refusal leaves a genuinely damaging record live, we look at suppression or removal routes instead — and a listing on a dead or unreachable directory carries almost no weight anyway.
Is this a one-time cost or a subscription?
One-time. Cleanup is a project with an end: the listings are corrected and the report is delivered. Citations do drift again over time as aggregators refresh their data, so a re-audit every year or two is sensible — but there is nothing recurring to cancel.