Findings · 2026-10-09 · By VSNARY | Emmanuel Orta · 3 views

Where Google and AI assistants get business data, and where Data Axle fits

Local SEO advice says data aggregators feed Google. Google's own notice names no US supplier, no AI assistant documents Data Axle as a source, and seven of our businesses appear on Google Maps while eight of the nine have no Data Axle record.

CrawlCheck publishes this, and the nine businesses in it are run by the same owner. Every claim below links to its source, and every number about Data Axle comes from Data Axle's own pages, read on 9 October 2026.

For years, local SEO advice has said the same thing: get into the data aggregators, because they feed Google. The name that comes up first is Data Axle, formerly Infogroup and infoUSA. We checked that claim against Google's own pages, the AI assistants' own documentation, Data Axle's own numbers, and nine businesses we run in Denver. The short version: Google reads your business from your website, your Business Profile, your customers and its own checks, and no engine documents Data Axle as a source today.

What Google says it reads #

Google's help page on Business Profiles lists four sources: publicly available information such as crawled web content, including the business's own website; licensed data from third parties; what users and owners contribute; and Google's own interactions with the place. It names no data company.

Google is required to credit the companies whose listings it licenses. Its Legal Notices Page for Business Listings Data names suppliers in 14 countries, from Infobel in France and Germany to SEAT Pagine Gialle in Italy. The United States is not one of them. Google did license infoUSA's database for Google Local from 2005, and its US notice credited infoUSA and Acxiom until November 2013, when both names came off.

Data Axle's old names still sit in Google's compiled code, in a list of about 800 data providers. That list also keeps labels for long-retired sources such as Microsoft MapPoint, so a name on it shows history, not current use.

The test: nine businesses, one listing #

Of the nine businesses we run, seven have Google Business Profiles and appear on Google Maps. Eight of the nine have no Data Axle record at all. The ninth, Supreme Fencing Denver, has one: it was phone-verified "over 1 year ago" and gives a street address the business never published, because it is a service-area business. Google does not show that address. Google shows the businesses Data Axle does not carry, and does not show the wrong street Data Axle holds for the one it does.

Where AI assistants get business data #

The assistants that answer "what is the number for…" document their sources too, and none of them lists Data Axle.

Apple's Maps acknowledgements are the most complete list any engine publishes. OpenAI's ChatGPT search help describes its own crawler and other search providers. Data Axle's listings site returns 403 to GPTBot and ChatGPT-User while letting Googlebot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot through, which we confirmed from two networks. Its local-listings page still promises to "ensure your business listings show up in AI-driven search".

What does reach AI answers is directories. On 9 October, Gemini with Google Search gave Supreme Fencing Denver the street YellowPages prints for it, a street the business has never published.

Data Axle's numbers, by Data Axle #

Data Axle publishes a live counter of its own database at insights.data-axle.com. Set beside its marketing:

Its pages also give three different business counts on the same day (18.6M+, 19.5M+ and 90M+), say adding a listing is free while a business that is not already listed has to phone, one location per call, and describe coverage of contractors and home-based businesses while its intake told us in writing that it adds storefront locations only. It still sells a real database to real buyers. What the evidence does not support is the claim that it feeds Google.

Who owns it #

Data Axle has been owned by the private equity firm Court Square Capital Partners since 2017. From 2019 to 2022 Court Square also controlled the parent of MapQuest, which is the publisher quoted in Data Axle's April 2026 survey release as its partner.

What to do instead #

Fix the sources Google and the assistants read, in this order:

• Your website. Name, phone and address or service areas in plain text on the page and in structured data, saying the same thing in both.
• Your Business Profile. The same name, phone, website and areas as the site.
• The directories that print you. YellowPages, Bing Places and Yelp. A wrong listing there is what assistants repeat.
• Your reviews. Customers naming the cities you serve is a signal Google reads.

What CrawlCheck automates #

The business record check reads what your website says, what the directories print and where they disagree, free and without signing up. With Watch, the listings and what AI models answer about your phone, address and hours are re-read every day, and you are told when one changes. Corrections count only when a later re-read shows they held.

Then put the business in the CrawlCheck registry: prove the domain is yours with one DNS record or meta tag, and every signed answer an AI agent gets from CrawlCheck about your domain says so. Your business record is signed, versioned and logged, and you can serve it from your own site. That is the record agents can check before they cite or book you, and it comes from you, not from a list seller.

Check your business record and join the registry →

Questions this post answers

Does Data Axle feed Google?

No public evidence shows it does today. Google licensed infoUSA, Data Axle's former name, from 2005 to 2013. Google's current business-listings notice names suppliers in 14 countries and none for the United States, and eight of nine businesses we checked have no Data Axle record while appearing on Google Maps.

Where does Google get business information?

From crawled web content including the business's own website, licensed third-party data, what users and owners contribute through Business Profiles, and its own interactions with the place, according to Google's Business Profile help page.

Where do AI assistants get business data?

Apple names Yelp, Tripadvisor, Foursquare, Localeze, Acxiom and Yext. ChatGPT uses OpenAI's own crawler and other search providers, with Yelp data reported in July 2026. Perplexity announced Yelp data in 2024. Claude's web search uses Brave Search.

Should I pay to submit my business to data aggregators?

Fix your website, your Business Profile and the directories that print you first. Those are the sources Google and the assistants document. A wrong directory listing is what assistants repeat.

What is the CrawlCheck registry?

A list of businesses whose owners proved control of their domain. Every signed answer CrawlCheck gives an AI agent about the domain then says so, and the business record is signed, versioned and can be served from the business's own site.

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