🔍 What Is Happening?
When you open your Local SEO Heatmap, you expect to see your own business name tracking keyword rankings across your target area. If a competitor's business name is appearing in your heatmap configuration instead, this is not a normal setup state. It typically points to one of three root causes: a Google Business Profile (GBP) connection pulling in the wrong listing, a project configuration error where the wrong business was selected, or a data sync issue that associated your project with an incorrect GBP entry.
This article walks you through each cause and tells you exactly how to fix it.
✅ Before You Begin
Confirm the following before troubleshooting:
- You are logged in to Search Atlas with the account that owns the Local project.
- You have Admin or Editor access to the GBP Projects section.
- You have access to the Google Business Profile that belongs to your business.
🛠️ Step 1 — Check Which Business Is Connected to Your Project
Navigate to Left sidebar → Local → GBP Projects. You will land on the GBP Projects page at /gbp-galactic/gbp-projects. Locate the project linked to your Local SEO Heatmap and review the business name displayed on the project card.
- If the project card already shows the competitor's name, the wrong GBP listing was connected at project creation. Continue to Step 2.
- If the project card shows your correct business name but the heatmap still displays the competitor, this is a data sync issue. Skip to Step 3.
⚙️ Step 2 — Correct the GBP Connection
If the wrong business is connected to the project, you need to disconnect the incorrect GBP listing and reconnect the correct one.
- On the GBP Projects page, open the project settings for the affected project.
- Locate the connected Google Business Profile and remove the incorrect listing.
- Reconnect by selecting Connect GBP Account (on the Local → GBP Projects page) and choosing the correct business from the list of GBP accounts authorised under your Google account.
- Save the project settings.
- Return to the Local SEO Heatmap for that project and confirm your business name now appears correctly.
Important: If you do not see your business listed when reconnecting, make sure the Google account you are using has Manager or Owner access to the correct GBP listing. A missing listing at this step means the Google account connected to Search Atlas does not have permission to access your business profile.
🔄 Step 3 — Force a Data Sync
If your project card shows the correct business name but the heatmap configuration still displays the competitor's name, the issue is a data sync mismatch between your project settings and the heatmap data layer.
- Open the affected Local project from the GBP Projects page.
- Navigate to Left sidebar → Local → Overview to confirm your business details are displayed correctly at the overview level.
- Return to your Local SEO Heatmap and refresh the page completely using a hard reload (Ctrl + Shift + R on Windows, Cmd + Shift + R on Mac).
- Wait up to two minutes for the heatmap data to repopulate, then check whether your business name now appears correctly in the configuration.
If the competitor's name is still present after a forced refresh, do not modify further settings. This confirms a backend data association error that requires engineering review. Proceed to Step 4.
🚩 Step 4 — Rule Out a Duplicate or Conflicting Project
In some cases, a second Local project may have been created for the same target area using the competitor's GBP listing, and the heatmap is displaying data from that project rather than yours.
- Go to Left sidebar → Local → GBP Projects and review all projects listed on the GBP Projects page.
- Check whether any project is named after or connected to your competitor.
- If a conflicting project exists, delete it or disconnect the competitor's GBP listing from it, then recheck your heatmap.
If no conflicting project exists and the competitor's name is still appearing, this is confirmed as a platform-level data issue.
📋 What to Check if Nothing Works
If you have completed all steps above and the competitor's business name is still appearing in your Local SEO Heatmap, collect the following information before contacting support. Having this ready will speed up the engineering review significantly:
- The name of the affected Local project and the URL of the heatmap page showing the issue.
- A screenshot clearly showing the competitor's name appearing in the heatmap configuration.
- The name of the competitor business that is appearing incorrectly.
- The GBP listing name and address of your own business as it appears in Google.
- Confirmation of whether the issue appeared after a specific action, such as reconnecting a GBP account, creating a new project, or after a team member made changes.
💬 Still Seeing the Issue?
If the competitor's name persists after following all steps above, this requires direct investigation by our engineering team to resolve the data association at the backend level. If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.