Last Updated on July 21, 2026
We took the businesses that come up when you look for a plumber, electrician, roofer or builder in Leeds, Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham, and checked every one against Companies House.
Most were fine. But directories that rank businesses, score them out of 120, and publish their company registration number alongside the listing are in several cases publishing a number that belongs to a company which no longer trades.
What we found
We collected 87 named businesses across 24 searches, four cities and four trades. We checked 86 of them against the Companies House register.
| Result | Count |
|---|---|
| Active registered company, confident match | 46 |
| Dissolved, or in an insolvency process | 4 |
| No registered company found | 24 |
| Could not confidently identify | 12 |
The 24 with no company record are not a finding. Sole trader status is normal, legal and extremely common in the trades. We record it for completeness and draw nothing from it. Anyone who reports that number as if it were suspicious has misunderstood the register.
The finding is the four. And more specifically, where they were found.
Directories are publishing registration numbers that disprove their own listings
Some directories display a company registration number next to each business, as a mark of diligence. It is a good idea. It also makes the listing checkable, and several do not survive being checked.
The clearest case. One directory ranks a roofing firm as the number one roofer in Leeds, with a perfect 5.0 score and 119 out of 120 inspection points. It publishes the company number. That number is real, and the registered name matches exactly.
That company is in liquidation. Its accounts and confirmation statement are both overdue. Its registered office is in London E16, not Leeds. Two genuinely Leeds-registered companies with near-identical names exist, and both were dissolved, in 2018 and 2021.
The directory had the number. Anyone could have checked it in about forty seconds.
Two more from the same source. A Bristol electrician listed with registration number 11551525: that company was dissolved in April 2024. A Birmingham plumber listed with registration number 09753787: dissolved in January 2019, more than seven years ago. A Bristol builder’s published number points to a company currently in a Company Voluntary Arrangement, an insolvency procedure, with its confirmation statement overdue.
In each case the directory published the evidence against its own listing.
Trading history that does not match the register
Two Leeds plumbers are presented as long established.
One listing states the business has operated since 2004 and claims over 30 years of experience. The limited company behind it was incorporated in March 2026.
Another was incorporated in April 2026. Two earlier companies using the same trading name were dissolved in 2023.
Neither of these is necessarily improper. A sole trader of thirty years’ standing can incorporate this year, and the experience claim may be entirely true of the person. But a machine reading these sources cannot tell the difference, and neither can a customer.
Two Leeds roofers presented as separate recommendations share an identical registered office. Two Manchester roofers likewise share one address.
Shared registered offices are common and usually innocent, most often a shared accountant or formation agent. We flag it only because both pairs appear in the same rankings as though they were independent options, and a customer choosing between them believes they are choosing between two firms.
Why this matters more than it used to
When a person read a directory, they applied judgement. They noticed a dead phone number, an address on the wrong side of the country, a claim that did not sit right.
AI assistants do not apply that judgement. They read these sources, blend them, and produce a name. A business whose record is inconsistent gets described inconsistently. A directory ranking a liquidated company first is a source that gets read as authoritative.
The register is public, free and takes seconds to check. Almost nobody checks it.
Method
- Sample: 87 businesses collected from searches for the best plumber, electrician, roofer or builder in Leeds, Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham, July 2026. Directory aggregators themselves were excluded; only named trading businesses were collected.
- Verification: each business searched on the Companies House register. A match was recorded only where the registered name and a plausible regional address both aligned. Where two or more candidates were equally plausible, or the only name match sat in an unrelated region, the case was recorded as uncertain and excluded from the findings.
- Every row reflects a Companies House page actually retrieved. Nothing is inferred or estimated.
What this study does not show
- It is not a study of AI recommendations. We measured what appears in web search and directory rankings, which is what AI systems read, not what they say. A separate study using the model APIs is needed for that, and we will publish it separately.
- Search was not UK-geolocated. Results were contaminated by American cities of the same name, so names were drawn from UK-specific sources. A UK user seeing a local pack would get a different and more local set.
- The sample skews toward directories. Businesses that pay for or actively seek listings are over-represented relative to organic results.
- Sample size is small. 86 verified businesses supports the individual findings, which are matters of public record, but not a national percentage. We have not calculated one and nobody should quote one.
- Not found does not mean not legitimate. It almost always means sole trader.
What to do about it, if you run a business
- Search your own trading name on Companies House. Check the number that comes up is yours and that the status is Active.
- Search any directory that lists you and see which number it has published against you. If it is wrong, ask them to correct it.
- Make sure your trading name, registered name and the name on your listings are recognisably the same thing.
- If your listing claims a founding year, make sure it is defensible and explains any gap with your company record.
None of that costs anything.
Whito checks UK businesses against Companies House and reports monthly on how AI systems describe them. We do not sell rankings and we do not take payment for placement. How we make money.
