Updated
Book a flight and the name on the ticket has to match the name on your passport. Not close enough, not obviously the same person: the same characters in the same order, because the person at the gate is matching two strings and waving you through when they line up. I treat your business address the same way, because Google can't visit you. What it has is what you've said about yourself in every place you've said it, and the cheapest way to be believed is to say the same thing everywhere.
Want this handled instead of DIY'd? See the three sizes and what each includes.
What NAP consistency actually means
NAP is name, address, phone. Three pieces of information that should read exactly the same everywhere your business appears: your own website, your Google Business Profile (the free listing that feeds the map results), your chamber listing, the industry directory you signed up for in 2019, the aggregator page you didn't sign up for at all but exists anyway.
Consistency here is stricter than it sounds. "Suite 4, 123 Princess St" and "123 Princess Street" read as the same place to you and me. To a system doing string comparison, they're two different answers to the same question. I don't know how much slack Google gives a phone number written 613-555-0147 in one place and (613) 555-0147 in another, and neither does anyone outside Google, so I match the formatting too. It costs nothing and removes the question.
The strings below are illustrative, laid side by side the way a system comparing them would see them.
| Where it appears | What it says | Matches profile? |
|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile | Suite 4, 123 Princess St | Yes, this is the version everything else is checked against |
| Website footer | 123 Princess Street | No, a different answer to the same question |
| Google Business Profile, phone | 613-555-0147 | Yes |
| Chamber listing, phone | (613) 555-0147 | Unknown, so I change it to match rather than guess |
What Google says, and what it doesn't
Here is what Google's own help page for local ranking says, and I'm quoting it because the exact wording matters. "Businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results." And the line I'd underline: "If your business info isn't accurate, your Business Profile might not show up for relevant searches in your area."
The same page says local ranking rests on three things: relevance, distance and popularity. Popularity is partly built from "how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have." So other sites do feed into how Google sees you.
What that page does not say is that Google compares your address against directories, or that a missing suite number carries a penalty. I've read it looking for that sentence and it isn't there. Anyone who tells you Google has a published matching rule is guessing, and I'd rather tell you plainly where the knowledge stops.
Anyone who tells you Google has a published matching rule is guessing, and I'd rather tell you plainly where the knowledge stops.
So why bother being exact? Because "accurate" is Google's word, and an address that disagrees with the one on your own website can't both be accurate. You have no way to find out which version Google decided to believe. Matching them removes the question, and it's the one part of local search you can fix in an evening with no budget.
What you own here is the canonical string. Your Google Business Profile address, name and phone number, as they appear there today, are the version every other listing gets corrected to match. Nobody else can decide that for you.
Four places a mismatch hides
- The suite number that only lives on the website. Your site header says Suite 201. Your Google Business Profile says the street address with no suite. Both are true, neither matches, and the two sources you control most directly now disagree with each other.
- A move. You update your website the week you move and Google that month. The chamber listing, the industry directories and the trade association profile sit untouched because you've forgotten they exist. A year on, the old address can still outnumber the new one online.
- St. versus Street. Abbreviation drift. One form on the sign, another on the invoice template, a third on whichever directory autocompleted it for you.
- A changed phone number. The new one goes on the website and the profile, and the old one keeps sitting on directories nobody remembered to touch.
Every downtown turns over, and Kingston's is no exception: a business trades up, trades down, or moves out to the west end for the parking. Each move is a fresh chance for the second item on that list.
Service-area businesses have more surface to keep straight
If you run a single storefront downtown, you have one address and maybe six places it appears: a manageable job.
If you're a service-area business out of the west end or Amherstview, it's a different job. A service business is likelier to be listed on more directories, because that's where the work gets found, so there are more copies of the address to keep in line. Your service area may read differently on each one. Google's guidelines also say a service-area business should hide its address on the profile, with the example of a plumber working from home. Then the question becomes whether the directories are still showing the home address the profile hides. Every one of those is another string that has to agree with the rest.
Check yours in one sitting
- Search your business name plus Kingston. Read the top three or four results with an eye for characters rather than meaning: your website, your Google listing, and whatever directories rank underneath.
- Copy each address into a note, one per line, stacked. Differences you'd never notice reading a page jump out when the lines sit on top of each other. Do the same with the phone number and the business name, including whether "Inc." or "Ltd." appears in some places and not others.
- Make the Google Business Profile version the canonical one. Change everything else to match it, exactly, including punctuation. Start with the sources you can edit today: your website footer, the chamber, anything with a login. Then work through the ones that need a claim or a support request.
The checklist I work from, in the order I do it:
- Google Business Profile: name, address, phone copied out as the master string
- Website footer and contact page match the master string, including the suite number
- Chamber of commerce listing
- Facebook and any other social profile with an address field
- Industry and trade association directories
- Aggregator and phone-directory pages you never created (claim, then correct)
- Old phone number searched on its own, to find where it still lives
Common questions
Should I use my cell number or the office line?
Google's guidelines ask for a phone number under the direct control of the business, and say to use a local number instead of a central call-centre line whenever possible. Pick whichever of your numbers meets that, put it on the profile, and then use that one everywhere else.
I have two locations. Which one is the master string?
Each location has its own. Google's guidelines say not to create more than one profile for each location of your business, so two shops mean two profiles and two master strings, and a contact page that keeps them apart rather than blending them into one address with two phone numbers.
How far does the exact-match rule go? Postal code, province, country?
I include all of it in the master string and match all of it. The postal code is the part that differs from one listing to the next without anyone noticing, because it never gets read aloud.
Where this fits
A mismatched address is one item in a cluster that also includes the category picked in a hurry, the hours never updated for the season, and the service area drawn too wide. How those pieces fit together is in how local SEO actually works for a Kingston business, and what I do about the cluster is on the Kingston local SEO page. If you serve Napanee as well, the Napanee SEO guide covers the same market with different search behaviour.
Email hello@kingstonseo.com with your business name and the address as it appears on your website, and I'll tell you where the two don't line up. Or call 613.480.1345. For a single-location business, this one is fixable yourself in an evening, so if you'd rather do that, do that.
Checked against Google Business Profile help pages on 2026-09-21: Improve your local ranking on Google, Guidelines for representing your business on Google