Glossary
The vocabulary of listing operations.
Short definitions you can cite. For the long version, start with the business listing management guide.
- Business listing management
- The practice of creating, verifying, and continuously updating a company’s name, address, phone, hours, categories, and attributes across search, maps, and directories so every location stays accurate.
- NAP
- Name, Address, Phone: the core identity of a location. Inconsistent NAP is the most common reason aggregators fork a second listing.
- Citation
- A mention of a business’s NAP on another site, whether a map publisher, directory, or unstructured page.
- Google Business Profile (GBP)
- Google’s listing product for maps and search. Necessary for local visibility, not sufficient on its own.
- Apple Business Connect
- Apple’s portal for managing how a business appears in Maps, Wallet, and related Apple surfaces.
- Bing Places
- Microsoft’s business listing product, still used in Bing search, Windows, and some in-car systems.
- Duplicate listing
- A second public profile for the same storefront. Duplicates split reviews, photos, and map-pack eligibility.
- Directory coverage
- How many relevant publishers currently hold a complete, matching listing for a location.
- Service-area business (SAB)
- A business that hides a street address and shows a coverage area instead. Still needs consistent NAP and categories.
- Primary category
- The single best category a publisher uses to classify the location. Mismatched primaries confuse both ranking and customer expectations.
- Aggregator
- A data provider that syndicates NAP to many directories. Drift at the aggregator layer fans out everywhere.
- Health score
- BLM’s 0-100 summary of NAP consistency, coverage, duplicate risk, and hours/category gaps.
- Map pack
- The local 3-pack (or similar) of map results in search. Listing issues are a frequent suppression cause.
- Storefront vs brand page
- A location listing versus a brand-level entity. Mixing them is a common duplicate source.
- Tracking number
- A call-analytics number used in ads or landing pages. If it leaks onto map listings, NAP splits.
- Hours gap
- Regular, holiday, or special hours published on one publisher and missing or wrong on others.
- Suppression
- The process of asking a publisher to close or merge a duplicate so one listing remains canonical.
- Local SEO
- Search work that targets geographic intent. Listings are the foundation; content and links sit on top.
- Franchise listing ops
- The governance model where the brand owns canonical NAP while franchisees may edit hours and local attributes.
- Early access
- BLM’s current seating: create a workspace to unlock Starter, with Growth and Enterprise for teams that need more locations.