How complete is local business data, really
How complete is purchased local business data, and what share of records actually have a phone, website and address?
Across 2,288,171 US local business records we measured in July 2026: 99.5% carry a business name, 99.3% a Google Maps link, 95.0% a phone number, 83.3% a street address and 70.8% a website. Address coverage is the volatile one, swinging from 55.6% to 100% by trade for a reason that is not a data defect.
Measured across our own 27 US local-trade files, 2,288,171 records, built 24 July 2026 from Google Maps business listings. A field counts as present if it is non-empty after trimming whitespace. No sampling. The script is measure-local-fields.mjs in this repository.
Fields are matched by column name rather than by position, which matters because the source arrives in two different column layouts. Reading by position would have silently measured the wrong column on part of the set.
We publish this because no vendor selling local business data publishes it, including the ones quoting accuracy percentages. A record count with no completeness rate behind it tells a buyer nothing about what they can do with the file, and the reason it is rarely published is that the numbers are unflattering. Ours are below, including the file where they are worst.
Overall completeness
2,288,171 records, all 27 trades, measured 24 July 2026.
| Field | Present |
|---|---|
| Business name | 99.5% |
| Google Maps link | 99.3% |
| Phone | 95.0% |
| Street address | 83.3% |
| Website | 70.8% |
Missing addresses are a Google Maps behaviour, not a data defect
Address coverage looks alarming until you sort by it. The six worst trades are cleaning services (55.6%), tree services (56.7%), painters (58.8%), landscaping (58.9%), HVAC (59.8%) and pest control (62.5%). The best are hotels and restaurants, both at 100%, then convenience stores and orthodontists at 99.8%.
That is not a random distribution. Every trade at the bottom is one where the work happens at the customer's property, and every trade at the top operates from premises a customer visits. Google Maps lets a service-area business hide its street address, and tradespeople working out of a van or a home office almost always do.
So the missing addresses are mostly correct. The business genuinely has no public street address. This is worth knowing before you buy: a landscaping file is a poor choice for direct mail and an excellent one for phone, because phone coverage in exactly those trades runs 96.6% to 98.2%.
| Trade | Phone | Website | Address |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cleaning Services | 96.9% | 61.5% | 55.6% |
| Tree Services | 97.4% | 67.1% | 56.7% |
| Painters | 97.1% | 62.1% | 58.8% |
| Landscaping | 97.2% | 65.4% | 58.9% |
| HVAC | 84% | 60.8% | 59.8% |
| Pest Control | 97.9% | 75% | 62.5% |
| Kitchen Remodeling | 97.7% | 78.1% | 64.6% |
| Plumbers | 98.2% | 64.9% | 65.8% |
| Carpenters | 96.7% | 67.9% | 68.9% |
| Roofers | 97.9% | 78.5% | 72.7% |
| General Contractors | 97.6% | 71.9% | 73.1% |
| Moving Companies | 96.6% | 64.5% | 80% |
| Bakeries | 89.7% | 70.3% | 88.3% |
| Jewelry Stores | 91.6% | 70.2% | 93% |
| Clothing Stores | 87.8% | 67.8% | 93.5% |
| Bookstores | 90.2% | 78.2% | 96.8% |
| Medical Spas | 97% | 87.9% | 97.6% |
| Barber Shops | 92.1% | 56.5% | 98.5% |
| Hair Salons | 93.4% | 62.1% | 98.7% |
| Healthcare | 96.1% | 78.6% | 99.2% |
| Food & Beverage | 95% | 77.2% | 99.3% |
| Furniture Stores | 95.3% | 76% | 99.6% |
| Pharmacies | 94.7% | 66.9% | 99.6% |
| Convenience Stores | 85.9% | 35.4% | 99.8% |
| Orthodontist | 98.9% | 86.7% | 99.8% |
| Hotels | 96.7% | 85.6% | 100% |
| Restaurant | 96.6% | 83.4% | 100% |
The file where our own numbers are worst
The HVAC file is the weakest in the set and we would rather say so here than have a buyer find out after paying. 86.0% of its records carry a business name against 99.5% across every other trade, 84.0% carry a phone against a 95.0% average, and 77.6% carry a Google Maps link where every other file is at or near 100%.
It is the one file in the set that is materially below the rest, and it is being rebuilt. Until it is, the completeness figures above are the honest description of what is in it.
How to read any vendor's record count
Multiply it. A file of 134,185 cleaning services with 61.5% website coverage is 82,524 businesses you can reach by web, not 134,185. The same file is 130,025 you can reach by phone.
Every list we sell states its record count, its build date and its field list on the product page. This report adds the fill rate per field so the count means something. If a vendor will not give you the same three numbers before you pay, the count is the only thing they are confident about.