Questions? FoundYa the answers.
Everything you actually wanted to know about finding New Zealand businesses, listing your business and getting found online — without needing a dictionary of marketing acronyms.
Looking for a business?
FoundYa helps people search for New Zealand businesses by service, business name and location.
Find a business →Own a business?
Create a FoundYa profile and make it easier for customers, search engines and AI tools to understand what you do.
List your business →What is FoundYa?
FoundYa is a New Zealand business discovery platform built to help people find good local businesses and help good businesses get found more often online. Think business directory, discovery tool and online visibility helper rolled into one — with less corporate waffle.
How do I find a business on FoundYa?
Use FoundYa search to look by business name, service or location. You might search for a plumber in Tauranga, an accountant in Hamilton, a painter in Auckland or any other local service you need.
What types of businesses can I find on FoundYa?
FoundYa is designed for New Zealand businesses across trades, professional services, home services, automotive, hospitality, tourism, health, beauty and plenty more. If someone is looking for it locally, we want to make it easier to find.
Is FoundYa only for New Zealand businesses?
Yes. FoundYa is focused on helping people discover New Zealand businesses and helping NZ business owners strengthen how they appear online. Local is kind of the whole point.
Can I list my business on FoundYa?
Yes. Business owners can create or claim a FoundYa profile, add their services, locations, website, contact details and other useful information, then keep that profile up to date from their dashboard.
Is it free to create a FoundYa business profile?
FoundYa includes a free business profile option. Some additional reviews, monitoring or advanced visibility tools may be offered separately, but getting your core business information onto FoundYa is designed to be easy to start.
Why should I list my business on FoundYa?
A clear FoundYa profile gives customers another useful place to understand what you do, where you work and how to contact you. It also helps organise important business information in a way that can be easier for search engines and AI systems to interpret.
Can FoundYa help my business appear in AI searches?
FoundYa can help strengthen the information and trust signals around your business so AI systems have clearer information to work with. That can improve your chances of being understood and considered, but no platform can guarantee that ChatGPT or any other AI tool will recommend a specific business.
Does FoundYa replace Google Business Profile or my website?
Nope. Your website and Google Business Profile are still important. FoundYa is another piece of your online presence and is designed to complement them, not send them off into early retirement.
What information should I add to my FoundYa profile?
The useful stuff: a clear business description, services, areas you serve, website, phone, email, Google Business Profile and other relevant links. The clearer and more complete your information is, the easier it is for people to work out whether you are the right fit.
How does FoundYa decide which businesses appear in search results?
FoundYa starts with relevance to the search. It can also use signals such as profile quality and digital health when ordering similar businesses. We publish more detail on our ranking approach so businesses can understand how it works.
Can businesses pay to secretly rank first?
No. If paid placement is introduced, it should be clearly identified. Organic FoundYa search is intended to remain useful and trustworthy rather than becoming a game of whoever waves the biggest credit card.
How do I claim a business that is already on FoundYa?
If a starter profile already exists for your business, the claim process will let the real business owner take control, verify the details and build it out properly.
What if the information about a business is wrong?
Business information changes. Phone numbers move, websites get rebuilt and people occasionally discover they have been spelling something wrong for eleven years. Business owners can update their profiles, and FoundYa is being built to make corrections straightforward.
Does FoundYa recommend the best business?
FoundYa helps people discover relevant businesses and compare useful information. The right business depends on the job, location, availability, experience and what matters to you, so the final call stays with the person doing the choosing.
How is FoundYa different from a normal business directory?
A normal directory mostly stores listings. FoundYa is being built around discovery and visibility: helping customers find businesses, helping businesses improve the information behind their online presence and connecting that information to search, Google and AI-era discovery.
What does “FoundYa online, mate” actually mean?
Pretty much what it sounds like. We want good businesses to be easier to find and good customers to spend less time hunting around the internet. If we can make that happen without making everyone learn a new acronym every five minutes, even better.
Go have a nosey around.
Search for a local business or create your own FoundYa profile and see how it all works.