Keep business information clear

Choose a record for each fact

Start with information that affects a customer's next action. Give each fact a current reference, a responsible person and a check date.

A business with several sites should keep each site's details apart. A general page shouldn't contradict a local one.

Write each fact the way a customer needs it, not the way an internal system stores it. A phone number should be the line customers ring. An address should lead to the door they use.

Some facts cost a customer more than others when they're wrong. A wrong opening time sends someone to a locked door, and a wrong phone number loses the enquiry altogether.

Rank each fact by the harm a wrong version would do and by how often it changes. Prices, eligibility and waiting times often score high on both, so check them early.

For each item note the source, the person responsible and the date you last checked it. A source might be a published policy or a business record.

An old brochure isn't current just because it's easy to find. When records disagree, ask the responsible person to confirm.

Some facts belong to an outside body, such as a registration with a regulator or an industry association. Copy the detail from that body's own record and note where you found it.

Look for gaps and contradictions

Read related pages together before choosing which version to change. Two different statements may concern different locations or different parts of the service.

A dental practice might show different opening times on two pages. Note both before you decide which is current.

Look for softer contradictions as well. One page may say you cover the whole county while another names a handful of towns. Both may be partly true, so record the exact wording of each.

When one fact changes, review them together. Track third-party pages separately, because you can't publish their corrections yourself.

Keep any machine-readable description in line with the visible page. A tidier version for crawlers shouldn't become a different version of the business.

Include the places that repeat facts automatically. A footer, a booking widget and an email signature may each draw on a different setting, so one update can miss the others.

Make limits easy to find

Say what's included, where it applies and when it changes. Add a date to anything that goes out of date.

Use words a customer understands. Don't add claims, accreditations or review counts you can't back up.

Make a limit as specific as the offer it limits. Evening appointments need the days and the latest start time. If the detail varies from week to week, say how a customer can check it.

Put each exception next to the fact it limits, so a customer doesn't have to hunt through another page.

If something depends on a quote or an appointment, say how to confirm it. Leave unknowns open.

Write each exception in the customer's terms. Closed on bank holidays is clearer than subject to availability, because a reader can act on it.

Write facts that make sense on their own

A customer often reads one part of a page rather than the whole thing. A fact should still make sense without the paragraph above it.

Name the business and the place close to the fact. Write opening times and prices as text on the page, not only inside an image or a downloadable file.

Google's guidance on AI features in Search asks site owners to make important content available in textual form. Text is also easier for a customer to copy, translate or have read aloud.

Avoid phrases such as call for details when the detail is known. If a price is fixed, state it. If it isn't, say what it depends on and how someone gets a quote.

Use the same formats everywhere. Twelve-hour times on one page and twenty-four-hour times on another look like a contradiction, even when they agree.

• Google guidance on AI features

Give changes an owner

When a service or location changes, list the pages that need updating. The owner checks the published result.

Keep private records off public pages. Publish only what the business is happy and entitled to share.

When the owner of a fact leaves or changes role, hand the row to someone else the same day. A register with gaps in the owner column soon fills with guesses.

Match your name, address and locations to the real world

Google's Business Profile guidelines ask you to represent your business as it is consistently known in the real world. They point to your signage, stationery and other branding.

Use the same test on your website. Decide which form of the name customers see, such as with or without Ltd, and use it the same way on every page.

A registered company name and a trading name can both be correct. Say which is which, so a reader doesn't take them for two different businesses.

The same guidelines ask for an accurate and precise address or service area. Write the address in full, as post would reach you, and describe the area you actually cover.

A business with more than one site needs this for each location. The same guidelines ask for a phone number or website that connects to the individual location.

Keep head office details apart from branch details, and give each location page the facts for that location alone. A head office number on a branch page sends callers to the wrong place.

• Google Business Profile Help, guidelines for representing your business on Google

Plan for opening hours that change

Opening times go wrong easily because they change with the calendar. Bank holidays, seasonal hours and staff changes each create a new version of the same fact.

Google's Business Profile guidelines separate regular hours from special hours for particular days, such as holidays or events. Your own pages can follow the same split.

Show the regular hours once, then list each exception with its dates. Take the exception down once it has passed, so an old notice doesn't read as current.

The same guidelines say some businesses shouldn't give hours at all, such as those that work only by appointment. If that describes you, explain how to book instead of publishing a timetable.

On the day the hours change, check every page and profile that shows them. A change made in one place only creates the contradiction you set out to avoid.

• Google Business Profile Help, guidelines for representing your business on Google

Treat prices as dated facts

Keep the applicable date and conditions with a price record. Do not let an undated document silently become the reference for a current offer.

Say whether a figure is a fixed price, a starting price or an estimate. Say what it includes and what would change it.

Booking systems and downloadable price lists often hold their own copy of a price. List each copy in the register, so a change reaches all of them.

If you only quote after a visit or a call, say so plainly. A customer can then plan, and nobody has to guess at a figure you never published.

Keep earlier prices with their dates rather than deleting them. When an answer quotes an old price, the dated history shows whether it was ever right.

List the copies you don't control

Your details also sit on directories, review sites, social profiles, supplier pages and old news stories. Some were right when they were written and are now out of date.

AI answers can link to pages beyond your own website. A wrong detail on someone else's page is therefore worth knowing about, even though you can't edit it.

Add each copy you find to the register as its own row. Note who controls it, what it says and the date you saw it.

Where you manage the listing yourself, correct it and record the date. Where you don't, ask the owner and record the request. A request isn't a correction until the page changes.

Google's guidance on AI features in Search lists checking that Business Profile information is up to date among its SEO basics. Treat your own profiles as rows in the same register.

• Google guidance on AI features

Make the check part of normal changes

Give someone the job of updating the register when a service, policy or location changes. Set a review date to match how often each fact changes.

Keep earlier values and the reason for each change where it helps explain past answers. Don't call a record current if nobody checked it.

Use the register before you edit a page or challenge an answer. It gives you a factual starting point.

Review the register itself from time to time. Look for rows with no owner, no source or a check date that has passed, and settle those first.

Start from the register when an answer is wrong

Check the current fact before changing anything. Keep the original answer and investigate the disputed detail instead of making the business record fit the reply.

Then look for the old detail on your own pages. If you find it, correct that page first. If your pages are right, read the third-party pages linked from the answer.

Record the answer's wording, the date and the assistant you asked. A later answer may change or may not, and you'll want the original to compare against.

Never change a true fact to match an answer. The register exists so the business decides what's current, and the public pages follow that decision.

Sources and method

A Carqo review method. Provider statements link to the relevant documentation.

• Google guidance on AI features Link checked 4 November 2026
• Google Business Profile Help, guidelines for representing your business on Google Link checked 4 November 2026

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