Answers / Fixing Your Data

What Are Business Citations, and Do I Still Need Them?

A citation is any listing of your business name, address and phone on another site: Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing, Facebook, industry directories. You still need them, but for accuracy and consistency, not for piling up hundreds.

Why they matter more for AI than they used to

AI assistants build answers from the sources they can read about you. A 2025 Yext analysis of 6.8 million AI citations found that 48.73% of ChatGPT's citations came from third-party listings such as Yelp, TripAdvisor and MapQuest, while Gemini leaned on brand-owned websites. Different engines read different sources, so all of them need to say the same thing.

What to get right first

1. Your Google Business Profile, which Google's own AI features guidance tells site owners to keep up to date.
2. Your website, with the same name, address, phone and hours.
3. The major listings: Apple Business Connect, Bing, Yelp, Facebook, BBB, Nextdoor.
4. Directories for your industry, for example health directories for clinics or booking sites for salons.

What not to do

• Don't buy bulk listings packages that create hundreds of low-quality profiles you can't log in to.
• Don't ignore old listings with a previous address or phone. Fix or close them.
• Don't create listings for a closed location.

The honest claim

No directory "ranks" you in AI. What holds up is simpler: AI engines read these sources, and the sources have to agree.

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