A guest stands in front of a locked door on Monday. Google told them you were open, while your website has said “closed on Mondays” for years. A wrong Google listing is annoying, but it is rarely the real problem.
Hardly anyone writes something wrong on purpose. Errors appear because data is passed on, generated automatically and then forgotten. Once you understand where they come from, you can fix them for good instead of patching them every year.
- Wrong details usually do not start with you but with data brokers, directories and users who copy from each other.
- Google, Apple and AI systems take this data and add their own estimates.
- If you only fix your Google listing, the error often comes back, so the source needs fixing.
Your business appears on more sites than you think
Most businesses know three or four places where they appear online: their own website, the Google Business Profile, maybe Facebook and one review site. In reality it is usually a few dozen. Business directories, map services, navigation systems, review sites, regional portals and comparison sites keep their own listings, often without you ever hearing about it.
These listings are connected. According to Google, its information comes from millions of contributions by users, from data feeds of third parties and from websites it crawls. Directories buy data from data brokers and pass it on. AI systems like ChatGPT read all of it in the end.
An error that starts at the beginning of this chain ends up in many places at once within a few weeks.
The 8 most common causes of a wrong listing
Almost every wrong listing has one of these eight causes behind it. Often several work together.
1. Directories copy from each other
Many business directories don't maintain their own data. They buy it from data brokers or take it from larger directories. In Austria Herold is an important source, in Germany Das Örtliche, Gelbe Seiten and 11880. If an old value is stored there, it travels on into navigation devices, voice assistants and smaller portals. If you only fix the copy, the error returns with the next data sync.
2. Listings you never created
Many listings are created automatically: from the company register, old phone books or by reading websites. Nobody checks them and nobody is registered as the owner. They show the state of the day they were created, sometimes many years ago. Typical examples are the address of your first office or the direct line of an employee who left long ago.
3. A move, a new number, new hours
When something changes, the website gets updated first and then the Google profile. The other places are forgotten because nobody knows about them. After a move, both addresses exist side by side online. Seasonal businesses add new opening hours every year, and every season adds more outdated details.
4. Anyone can edit
On Google Maps, Apple Maps and OpenStreetMap users can suggest edits. That often helps and just as often does harm. A guest reports “permanently closed” because they stood at the door on a rest day, or someone enters a wrong number. A figure from Google shows the scale: in 2024 alone, more than 70 million policy-violating edits to places in Maps were blocked or removed. Whatever slips through ends up in your listing.
Business Profile2 suggestionsIn your Google Business Profile you can see such suggestions and reject them. If you rarely check, you often notice them only when they have long been live.
5. Google fills in the gaps
Google doesn't wait for you to enter something. According to a Google blog post from 2022, an AI model detects outdated opening hours and estimates new ones. For this Google uses your website, photos of signs from Street View, the hours of similar businesses nearby and, in some countries, automated calls. This way Google aimed to update the details of more than 20 million businesses within six months.
That also answers the common question of how Google knows your opening hours: often nobody entered them, they are estimated. Since 2026 Google shows owners in selected regions and industries which information it has collected itself from the web, by phone or by message.
6. Portals that never update
Some sites are simply no longer maintained. The listing was created years ago by an agency or a former employee, the login is lost and there is no contact address. Such pages are still found, and AI systems read them too.
7. Translations and mix-ups
International portals translate details automatically and meaning gets lost along the way. “Dogs on request” turns into “pets not allowed”, a rest day turns into an empty day. Then there are mix-ups: businesses with similar names, branches of a chain or a previous business at the same address get merged into one record. Suddenly your listing shows someone else's reviews or phone number.
8. Inconsistent details on your own side
Sometimes the cause is on your side. The home page shows different hours than the legal notice, the menu PDF is from last year, special holiday hours are missing. Anyone reading your website finds two versions and picks the wrong one. Consistent name, address and phone number are the basis for everything else.
How a wrong listing becomes a wrong AI answer
More and more people ask ChatGPT or Google's AI Mode instead of opening websites. These systems read several pages for a question and summarise them. If the sources agree, the AI repeats the detail. If they contradict each other, the more common version often wins, not the correct one.
Review siteMon 8 am to 6 pm
DirectoryMon 8 am to 6 pmMap serviceMon 8 am to 6 pmYes, Café Muster is open on Mondays from 8 am to 6 pm.On top of that comes the stored knowledge of the models. What an AI learned in training can be months or years old. Without web search it answers with that state.
How reliable AI answers are overall was studied by the European Broadcasting Union and the BBC in 2025: of about 3000 answers to questions about news, 45 percent had at least one significant issue, often with sourcing. There is no comparable study for business data. The pattern is the same, though: the AI is only as good as what it reads. More on this in the article on AI hallucinations.
Why wrong details keep coming back
Many businesses know this: the wrong value is fixed, and a few weeks later it is back. The reason is almost always the same. The copy was fixed, not the source. With the next data sync the old record overwrites the correction.
How widespread the problem is shows an analysis by the provider Uberall of about 73000 business listings from 2019: almost half had errors in the opening hours, nearly a third in the website and nearly a fifth in the street.
Experts therefore talk about NAP consistency. NAP stands for name, address and phone number. It means these details read the same everywhere. The more consistent they are, the more Google and AI systems trust them, and the less often old values creep back in.
What this means for your business
A wrong listing rarely costs a lot at once, but it costs a little every day: a question on the phone, a guest who books elsewhere, a one-star review because the door was locked. Which details hurt depends on the industry.
| Industry | Often wrong | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Hotel | Check-in, parking, dogs, spa | Questions at reception, disappointment on arrival |
| Restaurant | Rest day, kitchen hours, booking | Guests at a locked door, bad reviews |
| Practice | Opening hours, insurers, services | Busy phone line, requests for services you don't offer |
| Trades | Service area, emergency service, phone | Jobs that never reach you |
| Retail | Store hours, address, pickup | Customers think the store is closed |
How to find out where wrong details about you appear
You can get a first overview yourself in half an hour:
- Search for old values: Enter your old phone number or address in quotation marks on Google, for example “+43 2742 1180”. Every result is a page with an outdated state.
- Check your Google profile: Look at suggested edits and, where available, the information Google collected. Reject wrong suggestions and confirm the correct values.
- Ask the AI: Ask ChatGPT and Google's AI Mode the questions your customers would ask, such as “Is Café Muster open on Monday?”. Pay attention to the sources named.
This finds the most obvious errors. It is not complete, because many listings only show up for exactly the right search term. faktado.ai searches the web for all listings automatically and compares every detail with your website. The free check shows you within minutes where things don't match.
Fix the cause, not the symptom
If you only fix a wrong Google listing where you happen to see it, you treat the symptom. A fixed order helps for good:
- Make your website the source: All details are clear and current there, as text and not only in a PDF.
- Align your own profiles: You change Google, Apple Maps, Bing and social media yourself, right away.
- Correct the sources: First the large directories and portals others copy from, then the smaller ones.
- Follow up: After a few weeks check whether the correction is live and follow up if not.
How to deal with AI answers along the way is covered in the article Wrong answers in AI: how to correct them.
FAQ
Who can change my Google listing?
You as the owner and anyone you gave access to the profile. In addition every user can suggest edits, and Google adds details from its own sources. That is why it pays to look at the profile regularly, even if you changed nothing yourself.
How does Google know my opening hours?
From your profile, your website, user suggestions and third-party data. If reliable details are missing, Google estimates them itself, for example from Street View photos and the hours of similar businesses nearby.
What is NAP data?
Name, address and phone number of a business. If they match everywhere, this is called NAP consistency. It is the basis for Google and AI systems trusting your details.
How often is AI wrong about business data?
There is no reliable figure for business data specifically. For questions about news, a study by the EBU and BBC found a significant issue in 45 percent of AI answers. For business data it mainly depends on how consistent your details are across the web.
Can I have wrong listings deleted?
With directories you can request that your listing be corrected or deleted. A Google profile that belongs to your business can be claimed and edited. Correcting is usually better than deleting, because a deleted listing is often created again automatically, with the old data.
Harald FischlManaging Director, maxonlineHarald is Managing Director of maxonline, an SEO and GEO agency from Lower Austria focused on hospitality. He works every day on how businesses are presented correctly in search engines and AI answers. More about Harald