What is NAP consistency and why does it matter for AI?
Short answer: NAP is name, address and phone. When they match everywhere, assistants are confident you are one real business; when they differ, they hedge or get them wrong.
NAP stands for name, address and phone number. NAP consistency means those three facts are written identically everywhere your business appears: your website, Google Business Profile, Companies House, directories, review platforms, social profiles and press.
It has long mattered for local search, but it matters more for AI assistants, for a simple reason. An assistant deciding whether to recommend you corroborates across many sources. If "Smith & Sons Plumbing Ltd, 12 High Street" on your site is "Smiths Plumbers, 12 High St" on a directory and "Smith and Son Plumbing, Unit 12" on a review site, the model may treat them as separate weak entities rather than one strong one, or pick the wrong version when a customer asks for your phone number.
What "consistent" means in practice:
- Name: the same trading name every time, including "Ltd" or "&" if you use them. Pick one form and use it everywhere.
- Address: the same format, including unit numbers and postcode. Do not abbreviate on some listings and not others.
- Phone: one primary number in one format, such as
01234 567890, rather than a mix of tracking numbers. - Opening hours and website URL are not in the acronym but should be treated the same way.
How to fix it:
- Decide the canonical version and write it down.
- Put it in
LocalBusinessschema on your site and inllms.txt. - Update Google Business Profile first, then the directories the assistants cite for your category.
- Chase the stragglers over a few weeks; old listings resurface.
Seoptist's audit checks NAP across your site and public listings and compares every AI answer against your fact card, so a wrong address in an answer raises an accuracy alert rather than going unnoticed.