Ask five people in your company what your cheapest plan costs and you may get three answers. Your website, your profiles and the pages written about you can drift apart in the same way. This guide gives you one sheet that settles it.
The short answer
Keep a single page, a document or a spreadsheet, that lists every fact you want the world to know about your business. Give each fact an owner, a date it was last checked and a list of the places it is published. When a fact changes, change the sheet first, then each place on its list. Every few months, search for places that disagree.
The reason is simple. A person reading two different prices will ask you which is right. A machine reading them has to pick one, and you do not control which. Google's own advice for site owners includes making sure structured data matches the visible text on the page, and keeping Business Profile information up to date. The sheet is how you make both of those routine.
Step 1: choose what goes on the sheet
Start with the facts people most often ask about, or that buyers use to decide. For many small businesses that is:
- legal name, trading name and any older names
- what you sell, in one plain sentence
- prices, plans and what each includes
- delivery or service areas, and delivery times
- return and refund rules
- address, phone, email and opening hours
- founding year, owner or team names you are happy to publish
- awards, certifications and numbers you quote, such as "serving 500 customers" (only if true and provable)
Leave out anything you cannot prove or do not want repeated.
Step 2: build the sheet
One row per fact. Seven columns are enough.
| Fact | The agreed wording | Owner | Last checked | Where it is published | Proof | Next check |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trading name | Harbour Lane Candles | Maya | 2026-10-01 | Site footer, Google profile, Apple listing, invoices | Company register entry | 2027-01-01 |
| Starter candle price | 24.00 GBP incl. VAT | Sam | 2026-10-01 | Product page, product markup, Etsy shop, price list PDF | Price list v7 | 2026-12-01 |
| Opening hours | Mon to Fri 09:00 to 17:30, Sat 10:00 to 16:00 | Maya | 2026-10-01 | Site, Google, Apple, Bing, window sign | Rota | 2027-01-01 |
| Delivery time | 2 to 4 working days within the UK | Sam | 2026-10-01 | Delivery page, checkout, FAQ | Courier contract | 2026-12-01 |
How to use each column:
- Agreed wording: the exact text everyone copies. Write it as you want it read aloud.
- Owner: one named person, not a team. They answer for the fact being right.
- Last checked: the date someone compared the sheet to the real world, not the date someone edited the sheet.
- Where it is published: every place you know of. This column grows as you find more.
- Proof: the document that shows the fact is true. If there is none, think again about publishing it.
- Next check: prices and delivery rules need checking more often than your founding year.
Step 3: find the places that disagree
You are looking for your own facts in other people's words. Do these searches and open the results.
- Search for your business name in quotes, and your name with "price", "reviews", "opening hours" and "address".
- Search for your phone number in quotes, with and without spaces or dashes.
- Search for your street address in quotes.
- Search for a distinctive phrase from your own About page, in quotes. Old copies of it often sit on sites that have not been updated.
- Open your profiles one by one: Google Business Profile, Apple, Bing, social media, marketplaces, review sites and trade directories.
- List sites that publish roundups or comparisons that mention you.
- Ask the AI assistants you care about a few plain questions about your business, such as "What does Harbour Lane Candles charge for delivery?", and note which pages they cite. Label what you save as AI output, with the assistant, the model if shown, and the date. Check each claim against your sheet before trusting it.
For each hit, add a line to a conflicts list:
| Where | What it says | What the sheet says | Who can change it | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| example-directory.com/harbour-lane | Opens Sundays | Closed Sundays | Us (claimed listing) | To fix |
| A blog roundup | Starter candle 19.00 | 24.00 | The blogger | Email sent 2026-10-15 |
Sort the list by how much damage the mistake could do. A wrong price or a wrong closing time costs you customers. A slightly old logo does less harm.
Step 4: fix the sources you own
Start with your own site, since it is the page you control entirely.
- Change every page that carries the fact, not just the main one. Search your own site for the old number.
- Update structured data at the same time. Google's guidelines say markup should match what readers can see.
- Update your claimed profiles. Google's profile rules, for example, ask for a name that matches your real-world name and regular, customer-facing hours.
- Update PDFs, price lists and old press pages. Either correct them or remove them. An old PDF is easy to forget and easy to find.
For pages you do not own, fix what AI gets wrong has an email you can send.
Step 5: make it a habit
- Put the "Next check" dates into your calendar.
- Make the sheet part of any price change, new hire or house move. The change is not done until the sheet is updated.
- Give one person the job of running the conflict search every quarter.
- When you discover a new place that publishes a fact, add it to the "Where it is published" column.
How to check it worked
- Pick five facts at random. For each one, visit every place on its "Where it is published" list and confirm it matches the sheet.
- Repeat the searches from Step 3 a month later. The number of conflicts should be smaller.
- Ask a colleague who did not build the sheet to find your delivery time and your opening hours using only the public web. If they find two answers, you still have a conflict.
- Run our schema check on your site to see whether your page markup carries the facts you expect.
What this won't do
- It will not make an AI assistant recommend you. It reduces the chance of a wrong fact travelling further.
- It will not force other sites to update. You can only ask, and some will not reply.
- It will not stay right without work. A sheet nobody checks becomes one more place that is out of date.
- It will not turn an unproven claim into a proven one. Without proof, leave the claim off.