Fix · Corroboration

A declared profile does not resolve

Your page tells machines where else the business exists: a Facebook page, a directory entry, a company register. One of those addresses now answers with an error, moves somewhere else, or shows a different business.

What we found

N declared profiles did not resolve — the check opened every profile your page declares (in sameAs structured data, or as a link in the header or footer) and one or more answered 404, 410, or redirected away from a profile. Evidence EV-033, EV-034

The declared profile names a different business — the address works, but the page it reaches belongs to someone else. Evidence EV-034

Why it matters

Profiles are how a machine checks you are who you say you are. A search engine or an assistant reads your business name, telephone and postcode on your site, then looks for the same three facts somewhere you do not control. A link to a dead page gives it nothing. A link to the wrong business gives it a contradiction, which is worse than nothing: it is the mechanism by which an assistant attaches a stranger's name to your company.

The repair, in four steps

  1. List every declared profile. The free check names them. Otherwise: every sameAs value in your structured data, and every outbound link in the header and footer to a social network, directory, map or register.
  2. Open each one in a private window and record three things: does it load (200), does it show your business name, and does it show the same telephone and postcode as your site. A value the profile does not show at all is not a mismatch; Facebook and LinkedIn keep contact details behind tabs and sign-in walls.
  3. Fix or remove. Moved: update the address on your site to the profile's current one. Closed: remove the declaration; a missing profile is not a defect, a dead one is. Wrong business: you have linked a same-name page, so remove it and link your own, or if you have no profile there, remove the link and stop.
  4. Align the profile. Where a live profile shows a different telephone or postcode, change the profile, not the site. The site is the reference.

Before and after

Now

"sameAs": [
  "https://www.facebook.com/OldPageName",   ← 404
  "https://twitter.com/jerseyicecream",     ← other business
  "https://g.page/r/abc123"                  ← 200, matches
]

After

"sameAs": [
  "https://www.facebook.com/PenrithJerseyIceCream",
  "https://g.page/r/abc123",
  "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/01234567"
]
/* the X account was someone else's: removed */

Three good profiles beat eight thin ones. The register entry (Companies House for a UK company), the map listing customers actually use, and the one social account you keep current are enough for most small businesses.

Prove it worked. Open every declared address in a private window. Each returns 200, shows your business name, and where it shows a telephone or postcode, shows the same one as your site. Run the free check again: "Where this page says the business exists" lists each profile as opened and agreeing.

What it will not do

This fix repairs the links you already publish. It does not create presence on platforms you are not on, and it should not: an absence from a network your customers do not use is not a gap. Where a platform refuses an anonymous read (Meta and LinkedIn often do), the free check reports "not opened" rather than guessing, and you check that one by hand.