Why AI Gets Your Location and Jurisdiction Wrong
Too busy to read the full article? Here are the key takeaways at a glance.
TLDR
• AI often misreads a firm’s location or jurisdiction because signals across the web don’t line up.
• When AI isn’t sure where you’re based, local visibility drops immediately.
• Old directories, partner bios and scattered geographic references tend to be the root cause.
• Location and jurisdiction are foundational classification signals within The 5 Pillar System™.
• Cleaning up these signals restores visibility surprisingly quickly.
Key Takeaways
• AI needs consistent reinforcement.
• Outdated external data undermines local visibility more than most firms expect.
• Jurisdiction must be stated clearly. Implicit cues aren’t enough.
• Local visibility depends on alignment across multiple platforms, not just your website.
• These issues rarely resolve themselves. They require structured correction.
When Geography Starts Working Against You
Most partners feel confident about their location signals. The address is on the website. It’s on GBP. It appears in a few bios and the footer. What could possibly go wrong?
Quite a lot, as it turns out.
In almost every AI Visibility Audit, I find location drift that no one expected. And once AI becomes uncertain about where you’re based, the impact is immediate. You fall out of local prompts. Competitor sets shift unexpectedly. Enquiries come from the wrong places or dry up entirely.
This naturally leads to three questions:
Why does AI get something as simple as our location wrong?
Which location signals is AI relying on that we don’t see?
What are the real-world signs that AI has misread our geography?
Why does AI get something as simple as our location wrong?
Because AI doesn’t trust a single source. It builds your location from a pattern of signals scattered across the web.
When even a few of those signals point in the wrong direction, AI becomes cautious.
And cautious AI reduces visibility.
Here are the most common causes:
1. Old directories that never got updated
A forgotten listing from years ago can have more influence than your current website.
2. Small inconsistencies in NAP details
High Street vs High St, different phone formats, slight postcode variations.
Tiny signals, but AI reads them as instability.
3. Partner bios with historic locations
People carry their previous geography with them.
If a bio references another city or region, AI sees it.
4. Scattered or unclear service geography
If your content mentions several towns but doesn’t anchor them, AI can’t determine your centre of gravity.
Without structured reinforcement, AI relies on whichever source looks most consistent, even if it’s outdated.
So the first answer is straightforward:
AI gets your location wrong when the signals around the web don’t agree with each other.
Which leads naturally to the next question.
Which location signals is AI relying on that we don’t see?
This is where partners are usually most surprised. You think AI is reading your website.
Fact is, AI is reading your entire history.
Here are the signals you probably aren’t monitoring:
1. Legacy citations you forgot existed
Even one old citation can pull your location off course.
2. Third-party profiles you didn’t create
Business registries, outdated association listings, niche legal directories.
3. Old map data
Historic coordinates sometimes persist in Google’s mapping ecosystem.
4. Conflicting jurisdiction cues across your site
AI won’t assume England and Wales unless you state it.
If some pages say UK and some say nothing, the signal weakens.
5. Partner pages that don’t match your current footprint
Bio pages often hold the strongest geographic contradictions.
So the second answer is this:
AI is influenced by signals you don’t see, and it trusts them when they appear consistent.
Now the next question becomes impossible to ignore.
What are the real-world signs that AI has misread our geography?
Location errors rarely appear as obvious failures.
They reveal themselves through patterns of behaviour.
The clearest signs include:
1. You stop appearing in local prompts
Prompts like family lawyer near me or solicitor in [location] stop surfacing your firm.
2. Local competitors with weaker reputations outrank you
AI prioritises geographic certainty over professional strength.
3. Your jurisdiction appears blurred
AI may treat you as active in a region you don’t serve, or ignore the one you do.
4. Your strongest practice areas collapse locally
This happens when AI thinks you’re serving the wrong geographic market.
5. AI descriptions mention towns or regions you don’t recognise
When AI’s language no longer reflects your real footprint, geography has drifted.
So the third answer is clear:
You know AI has your location wrong when its behaviour doesn’t match your real-world geography.
So, how do you fix it?
How do we correct the location and jurisdiction issues AI is picking up?
Here is the structured approach used within The 5 Pillar System™.
1. Align every instance of your name, address and phone number
GBP, directories, citations, bios and your website must all match.
2. Update or remove outdated listings
These often cause the strongest drift.
3. State your jurisdiction clearly and establish one geographic anchor
AI won’t infer it.
A simple line such as Serving clients across England and Wales stabilises the signal. AI models (and Google’s local algorithm) do form a single “entity centroid” to understand your primary geographical identity.
If your signals point to Manchester, Liverpool, Chester AND London equally, the model becomes unsure and you vanish from visibility.
You can still serve multiple locations; the issue is conflicting signals.
Good practice additions:
Choose ONE primary HQ office as your “entity anchor" because even if you serve multiple towns, AI needs a single centre of gravity.
Add additional service areas in a controlled, structured format (not random town lists) and keep all citations pointing to your main HQ.
4. Strengthen partner bios
People pages anchor your geography as much as the firm does.
5. Add LocalService schema
This gives AI machine-readable clarity and strengthens Pillars 4 and 5.
Conclusion
Location and jurisdiction look simple, but they’re two of the most influential classification cues AI relies on. When these cues conflict, AI hesitates. And when AI hesitates, visibility drops.
The good news is that location issues are some of the easiest to diagnose and correct. Once your signals are aligned, AI stabilises quickly and visibility improves.
An AI Visibility audit will show you exactly where your signals have drifted and how to correct them. Or check out this blog post on how to do your own AI Audit in under an hour.
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