Google scores citation consistency with source weighting

Every local SEO knows that NAP consistency matters. Same name, same address, same phone number across your website, Google Business Profile, and all your directory listings. The standard advice is to audit your citations and fix any mismatches.

What I found in the leaked proto definitions is that Google isn't treating all sources equally when it evaluates consistency. There's a structure that assigns different weights to different types of citation sources.

// local_quality/citation_eval.proto
message CitationConsistencyScore {
  float overall_score = 1;
  repeated SourceWeight source_weights = 2;
  float conflict_penalty = 3;
}

message SourceWeight {
  string source_domain = 1;
  float authority = 2;
  enum SourceType {
    FIRST_PARTY = 0;
    AGGREGATOR = 1;
    DIRECTORY = 2;
    SOCIAL = 3;
  }
  SourceType source_type = 3;
}

The SourceType enum is the interesting part. FIRST_PARTY is almost certainly the business's own website. Then aggregators (think Localeze, Neustar), directories (Yelp, Yellow Pages, etc.), and social platforms.

Each source gets an authority weight. So if your business name on your own website says "Johnson Plumbing LLC" but three low-authority directories say "Johnson Plumbing," Google isn't just counting votes. The first-party source probably dominates.

Then there's conflict_penalty. This looks like a separate penalty applied when sources contradict each other, beyond just the weighted average. So having conflicting information actively hurts you - it's not just the absence of a positive signal.

So what do you do with this

Practically, maybe not a lot. You should already be keeping your citations consistent. But it does suggest that the order of priority matters. If you have limited time and need to choose between fixing your website's structured data and fixing a listing on some random directory, fix your website first. The first-party source carries more weight.

It also suggests that chasing dozens of low-authority directory citations might not be as valuable as the citation-building industry wants you to believe. A few high-authority sources with accurate information probably beats 50 directories that Google barely trusts.

I don't know the actual weight values. Could be a small difference, could be orders of magnitude. The structure tells us the hierarchy exists, not how steep it is.