Build a list of every old detail
Write down each name, address, phone number and website your business has ever used. Include tracking numbers, former suite numbers and misspellings. Each variation is a search term you will use to find stray listings.
Ask long-time staff for old details that you may have forgotten.
Search each old detail in quotation marks in a search engine, and again in Maps. Try incognito mode to reduce personalization. Check the first few result pages and also look at image results and social profiles.
Record every hit in a spreadsheet with the site, the wrong detail, the date you found it and a link.
Fix in order of impact
Start with the map and navigation platforms, because wrong data there sends people to the wrong place. Next, fix the major directories and data sources that feed others. Then fix industry listings and local pages.
For each, sign in and edit. If you cannot claim the listing, use its report or suggest an edit link and provide proof of ownership.
When owners cannot be reached
Some listings were created by third parties, and the site may have no obvious way to contact support. Look in the footer for a help or removal link. Be polite and send a brief request with your business name, the URL of the listing, and what must change.
Allow several weeks for processing. Resend after a month if nothing changed.
Redirects and old sites
If you changed your domain or website address, make sure the old address redirects to the new one. Otherwise, links on other sites lead to a dead page. Ask your web developer to set up page-level redirects, not just a redirect to the home page.
Keep the old phone number forwarding to the new one for as long as customers still call it.
Review the master record whenever something changes, and run the search check once a year. A short document that lists every place your business appears makes updates quick.
Prioritizing a large cleanup
If you find dozens of stale listings, resist the urge to fix them alphabetically. Rank them by traffic and by how often customers see them. A wrong phone number on a platform people use daily is urgent. A wrong address on an unvisited site can wait.
Fix the ones that feed other sources first, because their corrections spread. Then batch similar tasks: set aside an hour to do all logins and edits for one type of site, rather than hopping around.
Track time spent. If a listing takes an hour to fix and sees no visitors, document it and move on. The goal is a sensible reduction in wrong information, not a perfect score.
Documents that speed up fixes
Keep a few items ready: a business license or registration showing your name, a utility bill or lease with the current address, a photo of your signage, and a screenshot of your phone bill. Many directories and platforms ask for one of these when a claim or change is requested, so having them in a folder shortens every request. Name the files clearly, and replace them when anything changes so that you never send an outdated document.
Common questions
How long do corrections take to appear?
Some are immediate, while others take weeks. Data aggregators and smaller sites can lag, so keep checking.
Is it worth paying a service to do this?
It can be if you have many locations or old records. For one location, a few hours of careful work often covers it.
This guide is general information. Search engines change how they work and their guidelines; check Google's current documentation for your situation. Nobody can guarantee a ranking.