The citation audit that ends in a fix, not a PDF
Most citation audits are optimised to look alarming: they count every source they could not read as a listing you are missing, then quote you for the cleanup. Ours starts from the opposite constraint. We only report what we can actually verify, and we scope the audit to the directories that exist for your market: an average of 35 across the 50 countries we index, not 300.
"Not found" is not "not listed"
This is the line most audit tools quietly cross. A crawler tries a directory, gets a bot wall, a JavaScript shell or a search page it cannot parse, and records the result as missing. It looks like a finding. It is an absence of evidence.
Our free NAP checker is built the other way round, and the rule is written into the source: a source that returns nothing is reported as unreadable, never as "you are missing". So the checker separates its sources into ones whose pages can be read directly and ones that are best-effort, and it tells you which is which. That makes the output less dramatic and considerably more useful, because every item on it is real.
It matters commercially, not just intellectually. An inflated audit sells a cleanup for listings that were never broken. A truthful one tells you the smaller number of things actually worth doing.
Your audit universe is about 35 directories, not 300
We index 1,100+ active citation sources, so we could generate a very frightening report. We do not, because the relevant set for any single business is small and knowable. Across the 50 markets in our index it averages 35 directories: the 30 global anchors every business needs, plus that country's natives. The median market has 32. The thinnest have 30. The United Kingdom, the deepest market we track, has 79.
Then your category layers on top, and it is not evenly distributed either: contractors map to 95 sources while taxi and car hire map to 32, and 10 of the 45 categories we track have no category platform at all. An audit that does not know your country and your industry cannot know what "complete" means for you, so it substitutes a big number instead.
| What an audit reports | The scare version | What we do |
|---|---|---|
| Unreadable source | Counted as "missing" | Reported as unreadable, excluded from the fix list |
| Scope | Every directory in the index | Your market's set: anchors, country, industry |
| Inconsistency | An error count | The field that disagrees, and the URL where it does |
| The deliverable | A PDF and a quote | The corrected listing, with proof it is live |
How the audit works
- Start free, no account. The NAP checker scans OpenStreetMap, iBegin and Lacartes for your business and compares what it finds against your details. It is global and costs nothing.
- We scope the real set. Your country's ranked directories plus your industry layer, drawn from the live index. That is the list "complete" is measured against.
- We compare four fields. Name, address, phone and website, checked against the one canonical record you define, per listing.
- We fix by building, and prove it. Listings in your set are created or corrected and recorded with a live URL and a screenshot of the public page showing your NAP.
- Then it keeps running. While your subscription runs, listings are re-verified on a schedule, so drift is caught instead of discovered next year.
Where a duplicate sits on a platform outside the set we build, the audit gives you the URL and what disagrees: claiming a pre-existing third-party record is a per-platform process and we will not pretend it is automatic. Google Business Profile and Apple Business Connect are recommended citations you manage directly; we never post to them for you.
Audit, then fix: which page you want
An audit is only worth what happens after it, so we keep the three jobs on three pages rather than one page pretending to do all of it:
Check it yourself, free
Scan your NAP across free global sources right now. No account, no card.
Run the NAP checker →Run the audit by hand
The full step-by-step method: define your master NAP, inventory, score, prioritise.
Read the how-to guide →Have us fix it
The done-for-you build: your market's ranked set, built accurate, proof per listing.
See the service →Background reading: what a citation audit covers, why NAP consistency decides whether engines trust your record, and how to find and fix duplicate listings.
What you own when it is done
The listings are permanent and yours. There is no recurring fee that removes them: cancel and they stay live. What the subscription pays for is the ongoing half of the job, which is the half that actually decays, namely re-verifying listings, catching drift, correcting records when your details change and adding new sources as your market shifts. That is the honest split, and it is the same one across our service and pricing.
Where the numbers on this page come from
First-party, measured on 2026-07-17 from the live catalog the product itself builds from: 1,100+ active citation sources across 50 countries and 45 industries. The per-market average of 35 is the 30 global anchors plus each country's mapped natives, averaged over the 50 markets (median 32, range 30 to 79). The four compared fields are the ones our own audit records per listing. Nothing here is quoted from another blog, and the figures move as the catalog does. Same methodology as our State of Local Citations 2026 study and our by-category data.
Citation audit service: FAQ
What is a citation audit?
A check of where your business is listed and whether the name, address, phone and website match everywhere. A useful audit reports three states, not two: consistent, inconsistent, or not readable. Anything that reports every unreadable source as "missing" is inflating the problem it then sells you a fix for.
How much does a citation audit cost?
Our self-serve NAP check is free and needs no account: it scans OpenStreetMap, iBegin and Lacartes for your business and compares what it finds against the details you enter. The paid work is the fix, not the finding: a subscription builds and corrects the listings in your ranked market set and keeps monitoring them.
How many directories should a citation audit cover?
Across the 50 markets we index, the set that is actually relevant to one business averages 35 directories (median 32, from 30 in the thinnest markets up to 79 in the United Kingdom): the 30 global anchors plus your country natives, then your industry layer on top. An audit reporting you are missing from 300 sites is measuring an imaginary universe.
Do you remove duplicate or incorrect listings for me?
Where a listing is in the set we build, we correct it and record proof. For a duplicate on a platform outside that set, the audit hands you the URL and what disagrees, because claiming someone else's pre-existing record is a per-platform process that we will not pretend is automatic. Google Business Profile and Apple Business Connect stay yours to manage; we never post to them.
How often should citations be audited?
Once properly, then continuously. Citation data decays for boring reasons: you move, a number changes, a directory reshuffles its records. While a subscription runs, listings in your set are re-verified on a schedule and drift is caught rather than discovered a year later.
Start with the free check
See what is actually inconsistent in about a minute, then decide whether you want us to fix it.
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