Why does the wrong address or phone number show up when people search for me on Google?

It has happened to you: you search for your own business and Google Maps shows an old address, a phone number that isn't yours anymore, or completely wrong opening hours. It's annoying, and worse, it costs you customers who call the wrong line or drive to the wrong door.

The good news is there's almost always a clear explanation and a way to fix it. This info (your name, address and phone — "NAP" for short) comes from several places, not just one. In this article I'll show you exactly where the wrong data comes from, why Google sometimes prefers the old version, and the concrete steps to set it straight — with no magic promises.

Google doesn't invent your data — it collects it from many sources

What you see in Maps or the panel next to the search results (your Business Profile) isn't a single piece of info — it's a mosaic. Google gathers data about your business from:

• Your Google Business Profile (if you've claimed it)
• Your own website and whatever the footer or contact page says
• Directories and portals (yellow pages, local listings, aggregators)
• Social networks, especially Facebook
• What other users report through the "Suggest an edit" feature

When these sources disagree, Google picks whichever it considers more trustworthy. If your old address appears on dozens of sites and the new one on just one, Google may trust the old one more. That's where most of the confusion comes from.

The most common causes of a wrong address or phone number

In practice, almost every case falls into one of a few situations:

• You changed your location or number but only updated it in one place. Every other source still shows the old version.
• You never claimed your Google Business Profile, so Google filled it in automatically using data it found somewhere.
• Someone submitted a "suggested edit" that Google accepted automatically, even though it was wrong.
• You have duplicate profiles for the same business (say, an old one and a new one), and people land on the wrong one.
• On your website, the phone number is written differently in several places (with or without country code, spaces, +40), which confuses the algorithm.

To fix it, first identify which of these is yours — usually two or three are happening at once.

How to correct the data step by step

Order matters. Fix from the strongest source down to the secondary ones:

1. Claim and verify your Google Business Profile. It's free, done from the business's Google account, and verification is usually by mail, phone or video. Without owning the profile, you can't control what shows up.

2. Correct the address, phone and hours directly in the profile. Save and wait — changes can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days.

3. Find and resolve duplicates. If you spot a second profile for your business, you can report it as a duplicate to have it removed.

4. Update your own website so it shows the exact same address and phone, written identically everywhere.

5. Fix the major directories and your Facebook page. The more sources say the same thing, the fewer reasons Google has to revert to the old version.

Why old data sometimes comes back (and how to prevent it)

Even after you fix the profile, old data can return. The reason is simple: Google keeps looking at the other sources. If ten directories still show the old address, the algorithm may "correct" back to what it sees most often.

That's why consistency is the golden rule. Your business name, address and phone must be written identically everywhere — same form, same abbreviations, same phone format. Not "St." in one place and "Street" in another.

One detail that's easy to miss: if you only serve clients at their location or online and don't receive customers at an office, you can hide the address and set a "service area" instead. That way no misleading address appears at all.

When it's worth getting help, and how we work

If you have a single clean profile, you can mostly fix it yourself in an afternoon. It gets complicated when you have old duplicates, a website that says something different from Google, and dozens of directories to clean up — that's where time and patience drain away.

At MPO Web Studio we work remotely across the whole country and do exactly this as part of building a serious online presence: a clean Google profile, a website with correct and identical data, plus checking the sources that keep pulling things back. We can prepare a free demo site with your correct details, so you see the result before paying anything.

If you'd like a hand, message us on WhatsApp with your business name and the correct address — we'll look at where the problem comes from together. And an honest warning: don't trust anyone who promises you a "guaranteed #1 on Google." That can't be guaranteed.