Citation (Local)
A local citation is any online mention of your business name, address and phone number, whether or not it links back to you. Directories, chamber listings and industry sites all count. Consistent citations reinforce the location signals behind local search rankings.
Why it matters for your rankings
Google verifies local businesses partly by corroboration. If forty independent sources agree on your address and phone number, confidence rises that you exist where you claim to. If they disagree, confidence falls and rankings suffer.
The practical problem is drift. Businesses move, change phone systems or rebrand, and update their own site while leaving dozens of stale listings behind. Years later those old records still circulate, because data aggregators copy from each other. Suite numbers formatted differently, an old area code or a former trading name are enough to weaken the signal. Citation work is unglamorous and has a real ceiling, but for a business competing in a dense local market it is often the cheapest available ranking gain.
How to check it on your site
Establish the canonical format
Write down exactly one correct version of your name, address and phone number, including punctuation and suite formatting. Every listing must match it character for character.
Audit the major aggregators
Check Google Business Profile, Apple Business Connect, Bing Places, Facebook, Yelp and your primary industry directories by hand.
Search for orphaned listings
Google your old phone number and old address in quotes. Anything that surfaces is a stale citation still contradicting your current data.
Fix the source, not just the copy
Correcting an aggregator record stops the bad data being redistributed. Fixing only the visible listing lets it reappear.