Citation Finder
Find citation opportunities with industry-specific directories.
Local Citation Finder that tells you when to stop
We search up to twenty real directories for your business, split by market so UK businesses are not measured against American sites, and hand back the URL of every listing we find. Including the ones you did not know existed — the entry a previous agency built, or the record left behind by whoever had your unit before you. Then we tell you which of the remaining sites are worth twenty minutes and which are winding down.
Built and reviewed by Sayed Hasan, founder of SEOs Hut · Updated 28 September 2026 · Free, no signup
Best citations for a local business?
Google Business Profile, Bing Places and Apple Business Connect first — Whitespark's 2026 study ranks consistency across those three maps platforms as the highest citation factor, well above data aggregators. Then Yelp and Facebook, which BrightLocal found cited for 84.65% and 93.06% of the businesses it studied. Then your trade body and your town. A single-location business needs roughly 15 to 40 listings, not 300.
Three numbers that should decide your budget
BrightLocal ran 60,970 checks in August 2026 — five prompts across nine map points for 1,355 business locations in the US, UK and Australia, through Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and ChatGPT. Separately, the claim that ChatGPT runs on Foursquare data got tested properly.
Where to list your business, and where to stop
Do these in sequence. Nothing in tier two matters until tier one is right, and tier four is optional in a way nobody selling you a subscription will admit.
The three maps platforms. Not optional.
Whitespark's 2026 study puts consistency of citations on the primary search engines — Google Maps, Bing Maps, Apple Maps — at #28 of 187, score 124. Data-aggregator consistency sits at #85, score 91. The three maps platforms are roughly an order of magnitude more important than blasting aggregators. All three are free, you claim them under your own login, and nobody can switch them off when you cancel something. Bing Places did not shut down, by the way: bingplaces.com now redirects to bing.com/forbusiness after a rebuild on 3 October 2025, and existing accounts were migrated for you. Start with the biggest of the three — audit your Google Business Profile first, because it is the highest-value citation you will ever own.
- Google Business Profile
- Bing Places for Business
- Apple Business Connect
The review sites that actually get quoted
Yelp was 9.53% of all citations in BrightLocal's study and appeared for 84.65% of businesses — and it was a source in 80% of all ChatGPT answers, 99,281 citations, with Yelp having disclosed a non-exclusive OpenAI licensing deal in its FY2025 earnings release on 12 February 2026. Facebook is the odd one: only 2.23% of citations, but present for 93.06% of all businesses studied, second only to Google. Claim it even if you never post again. Find which social accounts already exist under your name while you are here — some of them will not be yours, and those are citations working against you.
- Yelp
- Better Business Bureau
- The one review site your trade actually lives on
Your trade body and your town
The association whose badge is already on your van. Your chamber of commerce. The local paper's business listing. A supplier's where-to-buy page. These are the citations a human being clicks, and many of them carry a link, which is why it is wasteful to run directory work and link work as two separate projects — see which of these already link to you before you start emailing anyone.
- Trade or professional body
- Chamber of commerce
- Local paper or council listing
- Supplier and stockist pages
Free, five minutes, then forget them
Data Axle Local Listings is free under ten listings. Brownbook, Manta, EZlocal, MerchantCircle, Nextdoor and Alignable are free in the US. In the UK, Yell's free profile, FreeIndex, 192.com, Opendi, Tuugo, UK Small Business Directory and Thomson Local's free listing. Fill them in if they are free and quick. Do not pay for them, do not schedule them, and do not let anyone bill you monthly for maintaining them.
- Free national directories
- Free UK directories
- Anything with a claim flow and no invoice
Which directories are alive, which are free, and which AI actually cites
We checked each of these on the site itself rather than repeating a list. Four of them are dead or dying and still appear in directory-submission packages being sold this year.
| Site | Market | Cost | Status, checked on the site | Cited by AI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile | US · UK | Free | Live | 28.63% of all citationsPresent for 94.17% of businesses |
| Yelp | US · UK | Free | Live | 9.53% of citations, 84.65% of businessesA source in 80% of ChatGPT answers |
| Bing Places for Business | US · UK | Free | LiveRebuilt and moved to bing.com/forbusiness on 3 October 2025; accounts migrated automatically | Not broken out in the study |
| Apple Business Connect | US · UK | Free | Live | 19.56% of businessesApple's data is in ChatGPT's top ten; Google's is not |
| US · UK | Free | Live | 93.06% of businessesOnly 2.23% of citations — breadth, not volume | |
| Better Business Bureau | US | Free basic listing | Live | 29.30% of businesses |
| YellowPages · Superpages · DexKnows | US | Free | LiveAll three are Thryv and share one claim flow | 20.22% of businesses (YellowPages) |
| MapQuest | US | Not checked for this page | Still being cited | 54.69% of businessesThe highest legacy directory in the data |
| local.yahoo.com | US | Not checked for this page | Still being cited | 27.16% of businesses |
| US · UK | Free to be discussed | LiveNot a business listing, and you cannot claim a thread | 88.86% of businessesWider reach than any directory except Google | |
| Data Axle Local Listings | US | Free under 10 listings | Live | Not broken out |
| TransUnion Digital Business Profile | US | $99 per year, per locationFormerly Neustar Localeze | Live | Not broken out |
| Brownbook · Manta · EZlocal · MerchantCircle · Nextdoor · Alignable | US | Free | Live | Not broken out |
| Yell | UK | Free profile available | Live | 5.02% of businessesThe clearest UK signal in the data |
| Thomson Local | UK | Free listing, paid upgrades | LiveIts administration was August 2013, not recent | Not broken out |
| FreeIndex · 192.com · Opendi · Tuugo · UK Small Business Directory | UK | Free | Live | Not broken out |
| Scoot.co.uk · TouchLocal.com | UK | — | Winding down October 2026Both carry a closure banner on the site | Do not build here |
| Applegate | UK | — | Absorbed into Businessmagnet on 19 September 2025 | — |
| Local.com · Yellowbook.com | US | — | No listing or claim flow leftLocal.com is now a generic affiliate site | — |
| eLocal | US | Pay per call | Live, but it is lead generation rather than a listing | — |
| Foursquare | US · UK | Free | Live | 0.00% across 2,879 runsThe "ChatGPT runs on Foursquare" claim was tested and failed |
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
Citation percentages come from BrightLocal's 60,970-check study of Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and ChatGPT, August 2026. "Not broken out" means the study did not report that site separately — it is not a verdict on the site.
Three hundred directories does not beat thirty
Citations are verification infrastructure, not a volume lever. They exist so that the same facts about you appear in enough independent places that Google and the AI engines stop hedging about who you are. Once that is true, another listing adds maintenance and nothing else. The order matters far more than the count: the three maps platforms sit at #28 in Whitespark's ranking, aggregator consistency at #85. A service that blasts you to 500 sites is optimising the cheaper of those two numbers.
What has actually happened to the directories
Every dated item here changes what you should do with your money. Two of these events are routinely reported backwards.
Thomson Local goes into administration
This is the event people still cite when they tell you Thomson Local is gone. It is thirteen years old. The site is live today with a free listing and paid upgrades.
Applegate absorbed into Businessmagnet
A UK trade directory that still appears in submission lists. There is nothing left to build there under the old name.
Bing Places rebuilt, not closed
bingplaces.com now redirects to bing.com/forbusiness. Still free, accounts migrated automatically. If you were told Bing Places shut down, you were told wrong — and it is one of the three platforms that matter most.
Whitespark publishes the 2026 factor ranking
47 invited local search experts score 187 factors. Maps-platform citation consistency lands at #28, data-aggregator consistency at #85.
Yelp discloses an OpenAI licensing deal
Non-exclusive, stated in its FY2025 earnings release. Useful context for why Yelp turns up in four out of five ChatGPT answers.
The Foursquare claim collapses
Ben Fisher ran 2,880 prompts across 4,607 runs, twelve metros by twelve verticals, with the sample deliberately weighted in Foursquare's favour. Foursquare's citation share came back at 0.00%. Yelp was attached to 95.83% of structured business cards.
BrightLocal publishes the citation-source study
60,970 checks. The number that should reorder your list: about 93% of all cited domains were individual business websites.
Scoot and TouchLocal wind down
Both sites display a banner saying they close this month. Anything you build there this autumn is gone by winter.
The three questions to ask a listings subscription
We are not going to characterise any particular vendor's contract, and neither should anyone else who has not read yours. Ask these instead, and get the answers in writing.
First: when I cancel, do the listings you created stay up, and do they stay accurate? A listing built inside someone else's dashboard is not always a listing you own. Compare that with tier one, where you claim each platform under your own login and nobody can remove your access. It is the single clearest reason to do the free three yourself before you rent anything.
Second: which of these listings would you have built by hand anyway? BrightLocal estimates about twenty minutes per manual listing. Thirty listings is ten hours, once. Price the subscription against ten hours of someone's time, not against the fear of being invisible.
Third: what happens to the wrong listings? Duplicates you cannot access, the record from a previous tenant, the entry a former agency created under an email nobody has — these are the ones doing real damage, because 62% of consumers say they would avoid a business if they found incorrect information online. Each platform has its own removal route, and on Google anyone can suggest an edit or flag a listing for removal. Find them first: our tool returns the URL of every listing it locates, including the ones you did not ask about, and checking how Google resolves your brand will tell you whether those stray records are still being counted as you.
Citations stopped being a tick-box exercise in 2026
“3 of the top 5 AI Search visibility factors are citation factors … In AI SEO, mentions (citations) are the new link.”
<b>Darren Shaw, Whitespark, November 2025</b> — Local Search Ranking Factors 2026
The version of this that fits on a napkin
Claim Google, Bing and Apple. Claim Yelp and Facebook. Add your trade body and your town. Fix anything that disagrees. Stop. If you want to spend more after that, spend it on your own website, which was about 93% of every cited domain in the study — and check which sources get quoted for your category specifically rather than paying for a list someone assembled in 2015.
Local Citation Finder FAQ
Do Directories for Local SEO like YEXT help?
Are Local Directories Worth the Joining Fee
Directories to avoid?
can i list my business on chatgpt
Duplicate business listings I can't access; request removal assistance.
Do citations still matter?
How many business directories do I actually need?
Primary sources used on this page
- BrightLocal: which directories AI actually cites — 60,970 checks, August 2026 — www.brightlocal.com
- Steady Demand: the ChatGPT–Foursquare claim tested across 4,607 runs — www.steadydemand.com
- Microsoft: Bing Places rebuilt and moved to bing.com/forbusiness — blogs.bing.com
- Whitespark 2026: where citation factors rank against everything else — whitespark.ca
- BrightLocal: time per manual listing, and the 62% incorrect-information figure — www.brightlocal.com
- Thomson Local: still live, free listing plus paid upgrades — www.thomsonlocal.com
Do these before you buy another listing
Listings only pay off when they agree with each other and with your profile. These four check that, in the order that saves the most money.
Read the guide: how to run and read a local SEO heat map, local SEO link building: 8 tactics that work, how to run a full local SEO audit, how to build, check and fix local SEO citations and Directory Listings and SEO: Do They Still Help?. Want it handled for you? See our Local SEO services.