Why do AI answers get business details wrong?
There are two common routes. Answers drawn from a model's training data reflect the web as it was when the model was trained, so a recent move or a new phone number may be missing. Answers drawn from a live search repeat what the retrieved pages say, so an old directory listing or an outdated page on your own site can be quoted as current. Google says its AI Overviews can and will make mistakes. For its business profiles, Google lists the sources: publicly available information such as crawled web content, licensed data from third parties, contributions from users including business owners, and Google's own interactions with the business.
Step 1: How do you record the wrong answer?
Before changing anything, save the evidence so you can tell later whether the fix worked. Record the exact question, the assistant, the date and time, whether you were logged in, and the location setting if the question was about a local service. Save the full answer as text and as a screenshot, and copy every cited link. Ask the same question two or three more times, because answers vary between runs: a wrong detail that appears every time is a stronger signal than one that appears once. Keep the record with your other visibility evidence.
Step 2: Where did the wrong detail come from?
Open each cited link first, since those are the pages the answer drew on. Then search the web for the wrong detail itself, for example the old phone number in quotation marks, to find every page that still carries it. Check your own site thoroughly, including old location pages, footers, PDFs, text inside images and structured data, because a page you have forgotten about can still be crawled and indexed. Work through the usual outside sources as well.
- Your website, including unlinked pages that are still live.
- Your Google Business Profile, including changes suggested by the public.
- Directories such as Yellow Pages, True Local, hipages or Oneflare, where relevant to your trade.
- Industry association member lists and suppliers' stockist pages.
- Old news articles, award listings and event pages.
- ABN Lookup, for the business name and location details on the Australian Business Register.
Step 3: How do you correct the sources you control?
Fix your own website first: update or redirect old pages, correct footers and contact pages, replace outdated PDFs and update any structured data. Then check your Google Business Profile. Google says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show in local results, and that a profile with inaccurate details might not show up for relevant searches in your area. Confirm the address, opening hours including special hours, business category and phone number, and review any updates Google or the public have made to the profile. If you manage several locations, check each one.
Step 4: How do you get third parties to update?
List every third-party page carrying the wrong detail, with the site, the page address, the contact method and the date you asked. Most directories let a business claim and edit its own listing, while associations and publications usually need an email to whoever maintains the page. For a Google profile you do not manage, Google provides a way to suggest an edit or flag the profile for removal. Follow up on requests that go unanswered, and keep the list, because an old detail can reappear when one site copies from another.
Step 5: How do you report the answer and get pages recrawled?
Report the wrong answer through the assistant's own feedback controls. In Google's AI Overviews, use the thumbs-down icon, choose Report a problem and pick the category that fits; Google says the feedback includes your most recent search and its results. Other assistants also offer feedback controls on their answers. Then ask Google to recrawl the corrected pages with the URL Inspection tool, or submit a sitemap for many pages. Google says crawling can take from a few days to a few weeks and that a request does not ensure inclusion. Rerun your saved questions later and compare.