🔍 What Is a Local Citation Overlap Error?
A local citation overlap error occurs when you attempt to submit a new citation campaign for a business location that is already covered by an existing active campaign. Search Atlas flags this conflict to protect data integrity and avoid contradictory signals across citation sources.
This error commonly surfaces when a business updates its service offerings and tries to submit a new campaign without first resolving the existing one.
⚠️ Why This Happens When Offerings Change
When your business updates its service offerings — for example, adding new service types, removing discontinued services, or shifting focus to a different area — your original citation campaign still holds the old directives. Submitting a new campaign without properly addressing the old one creates a conflict that triggers the overlap error.
Common scenarios that cause this:
- The original campaign is still active and targeting the same location or category.
- New offering directives contradict the scope defined in the existing campaign.
- A previous submission is still in progress and has not yet cleared the system.
✅ How to Resolve the Overlap Error
Because resolving a local citation overlap error and reworking an affected campaign involves backend adjustments to your citation data, this issue requires assistance from the Search Atlas support team. When reaching out, please have the following ready to help the team resolve it as quickly as possible:
- The business name and address associated with the conflicting campaign.
- The exact error message you are seeing when attempting to submit.
- A description of the offering changes you have made (e.g., services added, removed, or modified).
- The date and time you first encountered the overlap error.
- Any campaign names or IDs visible in your account related to the affected location.
Having this information ready will allow the support team to identify the conflicting campaign, coordinate the necessary rework, and resubmit your citations with the correct updated directives.
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.