Across a large enough sample, the correlation between verified data and position in the local pack is difficult to dismiss.
Left alone, duplicate profiles spreads to sources the business never submitted to. In other words, every entry in a directory is a minor claim about who {entity_s} is and where it trades.
Set aside time to audit whenever contact details change rather than treating it as a one-off project. The term covers everything from map pack entries to a passing mention in a regional guide, if only since nobody else bothers.
More usefully, local citations are the online records that carry the core contact record for {entity_s}, assuming the basics are already in place. The data from most clean-up projects shows the majority of profiles carry at least one contradiction. At the same time, confirm by phone or postcode lookup, not by memory.
Merely as important, company profiles form the connective tissue between a website and the wider local web. Nobody sends a warning when orphaned listings appears, which is why audits find it years late. What follows from this is that comparisons between competitors tend to indicate clean-up work pays back fastest for family-run shops. Handle the high-authority sources by hand and batch the long tail afterwards.
Outbound notes