Opens in a new tabSkip to content
Agent LighthouseAgent Lighthouse

    Searches the text of every published page. The evidence sources themselves are not in this index — search all of them on the trusted sources page.

    GitHub ↗
    Browse checks and page contents
    structured-data/local-business-schema

    LocalBusiness/ProfessionalService schema

    What it checks

    AI agents use LocalBusiness schema to answer location-based queries like “find a [service] near me.” Without it, your business is invisible to location-aware AI systems. Add address, telephone, and openingHours to help agents provide accurate local recommendations.

    Why it matters

    Google Search and Google Maps parse LocalBusiness markup — for which name and a PostalAddress are the required properties — and may use it to populate the business knowledge panel and business carousels for local queries.

    Evidence

    • Google: “When users search for businesses on Google Search or Maps, Search results may display a prominent Google knowledge panel with details about a business that matched the query.” The doc also covers business carousels for business-type searches and reservation/ordering via the Maps Booking API. Required properties are name and address (a PostalAddress) — developers.google.com/…/local-business (verified 2026-08-21)
    • Local business remains a live feature in Google’s structured data gallery: “Business details displayed in the Google knowledge panel, including open hours, ratings, directions.” — developers.google.com/…/search-gallery (verified 2026-08-21)
    • Adoption: LocalBusiness found on 1.3M domains in the October 2024 Common Crawl, and on 3.97% of mobile pages — webdatacommons.org/…/stats.html and almanac.httparchive.org/…/structured-data (both verified 2026-08-21)

    Limits

    Google guarantees nothing: “Google does not guarantee that features that consume structured data will show up in search results.” The audit’s claim that without this markup a business is “invisible to location-aware AI systems” has no documented consumer behind it. No LLM or assistant vendor names LocalBusiness, and Apple’s Applebot supported-type list does not include it — that list is AggregateRating, Offers, PriceRange, InteractionCount, Organization, Recipe, SearchAction and ImageObject — developer.apple.com/…/WebContent.html (verified 2026-08-21). Google also disclaims any special schema requirement for AI Overviews and AI Mode — developers.google.com/…/ai-features (verified 2026-08-21). Finally, Google’s required set is name + address only; telephone and openingHours are recommended, so demanding them as the audit’s guidance does overstates the documented contract.

    How it scores

    A vendor doc names two consumers (Google Search, Google Maps), states the behavior, and specifies the required properties; the type is a live search feature with multi-million-domain adoption.

    Sources