The Citation Myth

I'm about to save you money. And time.

Citation building — submitting your NAP (name, address, phone) to 50+ directories — used to be a core local SEO tactic. In 2010.

It still gets sold that way. Agencies love it because it's easy to automate and sounds impressive in a report.

Lots of fear mongering too about bad NAP causing GBP suspensions, world wars, nuclear fallout, etc.

And now the AI GEO NEO onomatopoeia set is pushing post after post about what sites AI LLMs are citing THAT YOU NEED TO BE ON 🫵

(If you want to be mentioned….)

But here's the truth: for most businesses, adding citations on directories barely moves the needle.

What citations actually do:

Citations help Google confirm your business exists. That's it.

(It also allows the site in question to rank for your brand name and potentially siphon traffic away from your website, but hey who is watching.)

In the early days of local SEO, more citations = more trust signals = higher rankings. There was a real correlation.

Now?

Adding yourself to 50 directories doesn't give you 50x the trust. It gives you slightly more confirmation of something Google probably already knows.

Google has so many ways to verify you exist that citations are just one input. They're checking your search console, your website, your reviews, your socials, brand mentions in forums, etc to build an entity profile.

Sure you may see a temporary bump on a low authority site, or get a brand new site in the index slightly faster, but it’s not going to make you number one on the map (or in our old friend the organic results).

Remember, if anyone can get the link or mention, it’s not as valuable as you think.

When citations still matter:

New businesses and locations. If you have almost no web presence, citations help establish you exist. Get on the big ones: FourSquare, MapQuest, Yelp, Facebook, Apple Maps, Bing Places, your industry directories (then get a GBP).
NAP inconsistencies. If your address shows up five different ways across the web, that's a problem if a luddite finds the wrong profile. Cleaning it up helps…but that is usually a one time project not something you need to fix every month.
Industry-specific directories. Avvo for lawyers. Healthgrades for doctors. TripAdvisor for hospitality and travel. These carry weight because they're trusted sources in your vertical that often provide quality signals for AI LLMs and Google.
Suspended GBP. If your GBP is suspended, it is always good to look at your NAP on major third party websites to ensure it matches what’s on your GBP. This can be helpful if Google is questioning your proof of existence at a location.
Moving Locations. If your business is moving locations, you should update your NAP on all major sites you have a presence on. (We recommend saving Google for last once the others are updated.)

When citations don't matter:

You're already established. Google knows you exist. Your site is indexed and ranking for stuff. More directories won't change that (unless they are all wrong, then clean up once and you’re done.)
You're paying for volume. 200 directory submissions sounds impressive. 180 of them are sites nobody uses, including Google. My guess is 95% of those profile pages don’t even get indexed by Google to matter.
You're doing it monthly. Once you're listed, you're listed. Monthly "citation management" is mostly checking boxes for a recurring fee. Outside of Google, most of these sites aren’t trying to proactively update the content about your business.

What to do instead of wasting time and money:

Get on the 10-15 directories that actually matter for your industry. You probably already know them because customers have mentioned them or your own searching has gotten you there.

Make sure your NAP is consistent. Then 90% of you can stop. The rest of you have the budget and potential need for proactive monitoring and maintenance.

For those that don’t, put that $100/month toward: → Review generation → Local landing pages → Link Building → Actually answering the phone

All of those move the needle more than citation #47 on usabizzesthataregood.org.

The uncomfortable part:

If your agency has "citation building" as a line item on your monthly invoice, ask them which citations they built last month and what traffic or rankings resulted.

Most can't answer. Because the honest answer is: nothing measurable after initial cleanup.

It's not that citations are useless. It's that they're a one-time foundation, not an ongoing strategy. Once it's done, it's done.

Stop paying monthly for something you only need once and put that back into efforts that you should be doing more frequently.

Back to the future,

Garrett

P.S. — Want to know which directories actually matter for your industry? Get in touch with your business type. I'll send you the short list worth being on.