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Google Business Profile Audit and NAP Consistency Checker

Updated September 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team

A free Google Business Profile audit with a proper NAP consistency checker. Score the profile against what actually affects local visibility, and diff your name, address and phone across every listing to find the ones that genuinely disagree.

On this page · 9 sections
  1. What a Google Business Profile audit should check
  2. NAP consistency, and why formatting is not the problem
  3. The parts of the profile that actually change which searches you appear in
  4. Why this matters for AI answers as well as search
  5. Reviews: volume, recency and what replying actually does
  6. Duplicate and stale listings
  7. What this tool deliberately does not do
  8. Service area businesses, and the settings that catch them out
  9. How to tell whether any of this worked

The short answerMost citation tools tell you where you are listed. Very few tell you which of those listings contradict each other, which is what actually causes the damage. This audit does both halves: a weighted completeness score for the profile, and a real comparison of your name, address and phone across every listing you paste. Formatting differences — Ave against Avenue, brackets in a phone number — are normalised out before comparing, because those were never the problem. A different suite number or a call tracking number competing with your real one is.

The completeness half is a structured self-assessment, not an inspection — it is as accurate as your answers. The NAP half is a real computation on the listings you supply, so a directory you forget is a directory it cannot check. Search volumes and cost-per-click figures quoted are Ubersuggest, United States, September 2026.

What a Google Business Profile audit should check

A useful audit answers two questions: is the profile complete in the ways that affect which searches you appear in, and do your details agree with themselves everywhere else they appear.

The second question is the one almost nobody checks properly. Most citation tools tell you where you are listed. Very few tell you which of those listings disagree with each other, which is the thing that actually causes the damage.

Google Business Profile and NAP audit

Score your profile against the things that actually move local visibility, and diff your name, address and phone across every listing to find the ones that disagree.

Results appear here.

Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you paste is uploaded, logged or stored — which is also why it takes pasted text rather than a URL: a browser cannot read another site’s files without that site’s permission.

Why inconsistency costs you twiceWhy inconsistency costs you twice
Most local advice treats search ranking and AI visibility as separate projects. Consistency is the work that serves both, and it is unglamorous enough that most businesses skip it.

NAP consistency, and why formatting is not the problem

NAP stands for name, address and phone. Consistency means those three agree everywhere they appear: your profile, your website, and every directory that lists you.

The common fear is that writing “Ave” in one place and “Avenue” in another causes harm. It does not; those are read as the same thing, and this tool normalises them before comparing. What matters is a genuinely different suite number, a different phone, or a trading name that does not match the legal one.

The differences that are real

  • A different phone number, usually a call tracking number on one listing and the real one elsewhere.
  • A suite or unit number present on some listings and absent on others.
  • An old address still live on a directory after a move.
  • A trading name on some listings and the registered company name on others.
  • A duplicate profile you forgot existed, splitting your signal in two.

The differences that are not

  • Ave against Avenue, St against Street, N against North.
  • Punctuation and capitalisation.
  • Phone formatting: brackets, dashes, spaces, a leading country code.
  • LLC or Inc present on the legal record and absent on a directory listing.

Call tracking numbers deserve care

A tracking number on your Google profile while the real number sits everywhere else is the single most common self-inflicted inconsistency. If you need call tracking, put the tracking number as the primary and the real number as an additional number, so both are associated with the business rather than competing.

Which differences matter and which are noise
DifferenceReal problem?Why
4520 Skillman Ave vs 4520 Skillman AvenueNoRead as identical; normalised before comparison
(718) 555-0142 vs 718-555-0142NoSame digits, different formatting
Suite 2 present on one listing onlyYesA different address, as far as a machine is concerned
Two different phone numbersYesUsually a tracking number competing with the real one
Acme Plumbing vs Acme Plumbing LLCBorderlineTolerated, but pick one and use it
An old address still live somewhereYesActively contradicts your current location
Two Google profiles for one locationYesSplits reviews and signal; needs merging

The parts of the profile that actually change which searches you appear in

Not everything on a Business Profile carries equal weight. The primary category does more than everything else combined.

It decides the set of queries you are eligible for at all. A remodelling contractor filed under the generic Contractor category is competing in a different, broader and less relevant pool than one filed under Bathroom Remodeler.

In rough order of impact

  1. Verification status, because nothing works without it.
  2. Primary category, chosen as narrowly as is honestly accurate.
  3. Services listed individually rather than implied by the category.
  4. Complete hours, including special hours, which decide open-now eligibility.
  5. Review volume, which is the corroboration everything else rests on.
  6. Photos, for engagement and for people physically finding you.
  7. Secondary categories, description, attributes and Q&A.

Choose the category by looking, not guessing

Search the query you want to win, look at the businesses appearing in the local results, and check which primary category each has chosen. That takes ten minutes and beats any amount of reasoning about which category sounds right.

Proximity is the one you cannot fix

Distance from the searcher is a large factor in local results and no amount of optimisation changes where your premises are. Effort is better spent on the factors you can move, and on the service-area settings if you genuinely travel.

What this page's keywords cost to buyWhat this page's keywords cost to buy
Difficulty 14 on nap consistency checker is the lowest found across every sweep in this project. Low volume, but it is a question with a definite answer and almost nobody answers it properly.

Assistants assembling an answer about local businesses weigh corroboration heavily. They are looking for facts that several independent sources agree on.

When your details disagree across listings, nothing corroborates cleanly, and the result is the hedged mention: “may be worth contacting”, “I could not verify their current details”. That is not a judgement on your business. It is a description of your sources.

The same work serves both

  • Consistent details give a machine something to corroborate.
  • Review volume provides independent voices saying the same thing.
  • A specific category makes the match to a question unambiguous.
  • Listed services give an assistant something concrete to quote.
  • Independent mentions outside your own control are the strongest signal of all.

Check the result rather than assuming

Whether an assistant names you is testable in about four minutes. There is a separate free checker on this site that writes the prompts and reads the answers, and running it before and after this work is the cleanest way to see whether it moved anything.

Name — Legal vs trading. Pick one.
Address — Suite numbers. The usual culprit.
Phone — Tracking numbers. Breaks corroboration.
Formatting — Ave vs Avenue. Not a real difference.
Old listings — Previous address. Outlive the move.
Duplicates — Two profiles. Split your signal.

Reviews: volume, recency and what replying actually does

Review count is the most visible corroboration signal you have, and it is also the slowest to build, which is why it is worth starting before you need it.

The useful target is not a number but a rate: enough recent reviews that the profile never looks abandoned. A business with forty reviews, the most recent two years old, reads worse than one with fifteen spread across the last six months.

Asking properly

  • Ask at the moment the work is finished and the customer is pleased, not a week later.
  • Send a direct link to the review form rather than instructions.
  • Ask every customer, not the ones you expect to be positive, because selective asking produces a suspicious pattern.
  • Never offer anything in exchange; incentivised reviews are against the platform terms and are detectable.
  • Never buy reviews, which is both detectable and a reason profiles get suspended.

Replying is for the reader after next

A reply is not really for the reviewer. It is for the next person reading, and for the systems that read the page. A measured reply to a critical review does more good than a dozen thank-yous on positive ones, because it shows how you behave when something goes wrong.

Category — Primary one. Decides eligibility.
Services — Listed out. Matched to queries.
Hours — Complete. Open-now searches.
Photos — Volume and type. Engagement.
Reviews — Volume. Corroboration.
Replies — To all of them. Visible to both.

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Duplicate and stale listings

A duplicate profile splits your reviews, your photos and your signal between two entries that each look weaker than the single one would have.

Duplicates usually come from a move, a rebrand, or a profile created by someone else years ago and forgotten. Old listings on directories behave the same way: they contradict your current details and they outlive the business decision that created them.

How to find them

  1. Search your business name plus your city and look for more than one profile.
  2. Search your old address if you have moved.
  3. Search your phone number in quotation marks to find listings you did not create.
  4. Check the major directories in your category individually.
  5. Note every source in the tool above so the comparison is complete.

What to do with each

  • Duplicate Google profiles: request a merge rather than deleting one, so the reviews survive.
  • Old directory listings: claim and correct where possible, remove where not.
  • Listings you cannot claim: many have a report-a-problem route; use it and keep a record.
  • Listings on low-quality directories: usually not worth the effort unless they are actively wrong.
A realistic order of work for local visibility
OrderJobWhy it comes here
1Verify the profileNothing else counts until this is done
2Fix the primary categoryDecides which searches you are eligible for at all
3Make NAP consistent everywhereFixes both local placement and AI corroboration
4Complete hours, services and photosCheap, controllable, and affects eligibility
5Find and resolve duplicatesStops your own signal competing with itself
6Build review volume and replySlow, compounding, the strongest corroboration
7Earn independent mentionsSlowest and most durable; start it early anyway
Consistency — Same everywhere. Baseline.
Corroboration — Others agree. What AI weighs.
Specificity — Narrow category. Beats generic.
Recency — Recent activity. Cheap signal.
Proximity — You cannot change. Be realistic.
Prominence — Earned over time. The slow part.
What this audit can and cannot establishWhat this audit can and cannot establish
The completeness half is a structured self-assessment, not an inspection. The NAP half is a real computation on data you supply, and it is the half that finds problems.

What this tool deliberately does not do

It does not connect to your Google account, scan the web for listings, or tell you where else you appear.

Those all require either account access or a paid data source, and both would mean either asking for permissions you should be cautious about granting or charging you. The half that can be done honestly and free is the half that finds the actual problem.

Three honest limits

  • The completeness score is your own assessment, not an inspection, so it is only as accurate as your answers.
  • It cannot tell you whether your primary category is the right one; that needs looking at competitors.
  • It only compares the listings you paste, so a directory you forget is a directory it cannot check.

What to do with the output

Work the disagreements first, because they are concrete and each one has a single correct answer. Then take the missing items in weight order. Most of this is an afternoon of unglamorous work with a longer tail than almost anything else you could do in the same time.

Service area businesses, and the settings that catch them out

If you travel to customers rather than serving them at your premises, the profile behaves differently and several defaults work against you.

A service area business can hide its address, which is correct if you work from home, and must then define the areas it covers. Getting that definition wrong is one of the more common reasons a profile underperforms without any obvious fault.

The decisions that matter

  • Hide the address if customers never come to you; showing a residential address helps nobody and can breach the guidelines.
  • Define service areas by the places you genuinely serve, not by the widest radius you would technically drive.
  • Twenty service areas is the platform limit and it is not a target; a handful of accurate ones is stronger.
  • Your position in local results still depends on where you are physically based, whatever the service area says.
  • If you have both a storefront and a travel radius, keep the address visible and add the areas.

Why an oversized service area backfires

Listing every town within an hour does not make you eligible everywhere; it dilutes the relevance of the areas you actually serve, and it generates enquiries you cannot reach profitably. It is the local equivalent of a doorway page.

Home-based businesses

Hiding the address is not a disadvantage. What it does mean is that reviews, categories and listed services carry proportionally more weight, because the proximity signal is doing less work for you.

Storefront versus service area, and what changes
StorefrontService area business
Address shownYesHidden if customers never visit
Service areas definedOptionalRequired
Ranking still depends on your locationYesYes, despite the service area
Photos that matter mostExterior and interiorWork in progress and completed jobs
Most common mistakeIncomplete hoursListing far too many service areas
HoursCritical, drives open-nowStill worth completing for contact expectations

How to tell whether any of this worked

Local work is slow and most of the feedback available is ambiguous, so it is worth deciding in advance what evidence you will accept.

Rankings fluctuate by searcher location, so checking your own position from your own desk is close to meaningless. The measurements that survive scrutiny are the ones tied to outcomes rather than positions.

Worth measuring

  • Calls and direction requests from the profile itself, which the platform reports.
  • Enquiries attributed to the profile, if you ask new customers how they found you.
  • Review count and recency over time.
  • Whether AI assistants name you, tested with identical prompts month on month.
  • Whether the NAP disagreements you found are actually fixed everywhere.

Not worth measuring

  • Your own position when you search from your office, which reflects your location rather than your visibility.
  • Day-to-day movement in any ranking figure, which is mostly noise.
  • A single vendor visibility score presented without its sampling method.
  • Impressions in isolation, which move with demand rather than with anything you did.

Give it a season

Consistency fixes propagate at the speed directories update, which can be weeks. Review volume compounds over months. Judging this work after a fortnight will always produce a disappointing answer regardless of whether it was done well.

What to expect, and roughly when
ChangeTypical time to showHow you would know
Category correctionDays to weeksDifferent queries start producing calls
Hours completedDaysOpen-now visibility and fewer wasted calls
NAP fixed across listingsWeeks, at directory update speedRe-run the comparison and it comes back clean
Duplicate mergedWeeksReviews consolidate onto one profile
Review volume builtMonths, compoundingCount and recency both rise
AI assistants naming youMonthsIdentical prompts start returning your name

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We audit where you actually appear, fix what disagrees, and track whether AI assistants start naming you once the sources stop contradicting each other.

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Frequently asked questions

What is a Google Business Profile audit?
A review of the profile against the things that affect which searches you appear in — verification, primary category, services, hours, photos and reviews — together with a check that your name, address and phone agree everywhere else they appear.
What does NAP stand for?
Name, address and phone. NAP consistency means those three details agree across your Business Profile, your own website and every directory that lists you.
Does Ave versus Avenue actually hurt me?
No. Abbreviation and punctuation differences are read as the same thing, and this tool normalises them before comparing. What matters is a genuinely different suite number, a different phone number, or an old address still live somewhere.
What NAP differences do matter?
A different phone number (usually a call tracking number on one listing), a suite number present on some listings and not others, an old address after a move, a trading name that does not match the legal one, and duplicate profiles splitting your signal.
Can I use a call tracking number on my profile?
Yes, but set it as the primary number and add your real number as an additional number, so both are associated with the business. A tracking number on Google while the real number sits everywhere else is the most common self-inflicted inconsistency.
Which part of the profile matters most?
Verification first, because nothing works without it. Then the primary category, which decides which queries you are eligible for at all and does more than everything else combined.
How do I choose the right primary category?
Search the query you want to win, look at the businesses appearing in local results, and check which primary category each has chosen. That takes ten minutes and beats reasoning about which category sounds right.
Should I use the most specific category or a broad one?
The narrowest one that is honestly accurate. A bathroom remodeller filed under the generic Contractor category competes in a broader, less relevant pool.
How many reviews do I need?
There is no threshold that switches something on. What matters is enough recent reviews that the profile never looks abandoned — fifteen spread over six months reads better than forty whose newest is two years old.
Should I reply to reviews?
Yes, including negative ones. The reply is not really for the reviewer; it is for the next person reading and for the systems that read the page. A measured reply to criticism does more good than a dozen thank-yous.
Can I offer a discount for reviews?
No. Incentivised reviews breach the platform terms, are detectable, and are a common reason profiles get suspended. Buying reviews is worse on all three counts.
What should I do about a duplicate profile?
Request a merge rather than deleting one, so the reviews on both survive. Duplicates split reviews and signal between two entries that each look weaker than one combined profile.
How do I find listings I did not create?
Search your phone number in quotation marks, search your business name plus city, and search your old address if you have moved. Those three turn up most of them.
Does any of this affect whether AI assistants recommend me?
Yes, and it is the same work. Assistants weigh corroboration — facts several independent sources agree on. When your details disagree, nothing corroborates cleanly and you get a hedged mention or none at all.
Why does an assistant say it cannot verify my details?
Usually because your sources contradict each other, or because only one thin source mentions you. It is a description of your sources rather than a judgement on your business.
Can I improve my local ranking if I am far from the city centre?
Proximity to the searcher is a large factor and you cannot change where your premises are. Effort is better spent on the factors you can move, and on service-area settings if you genuinely travel to customers.
Is this a citation audit?
It is the useful half of one. It compares the listings you supply and tells you which disagree. It does not search the web to find listings you did not know about, which needs a paid data source.
Does this tool connect to my Google account?
No. It never asks for account access. You paste how your details appear and it compares them in your browser.
How accurate is the completeness score?
It is a structured self-assessment rather than an inspection, so it is exactly as accurate as your answers. The NAP comparison is a real computation on the data you supply.
Is anything I paste into this tool uploaded?
No. The comparison runs entirely in your browser and nothing you paste is stored. The only thing sent to us is the contact detail you enter to unlock the tools.

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