Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Local SEO
    4. Local Listings
    5. Will changing my business location affect my ranking for localised searches in my original area?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Will changing my business location affect my ranking for localised searches in my original area?

    Local Listings
    6
    9
    5516
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • fionadoggett
      fionadoggett last edited by

      I run a mobile outdoor personal training service in London, UK (i.e. no bricks and mortar gym). Or, rather, my business is in London (all my clients and the freelance trainers that work for me) but I'm personally due to move out to the county of Suffolk.

      As I work from a home office and my company's registered address is my home, that means I have to inform Companies House and various government agencies that the company has moved.

      Does this mean:

      a) I also must tell Google the company has moved, and;

      b) if I do will Google start to see my website as being for a Suffolk-based company?

      I really don't want this to happen: my clientele are mostly in London., I still want to market to Londoners. And if I want to expand the areas covered by my company, Suffolk is not high on my list.

      You'll excuse me if this is a simple question!

      Thanks for any help you could give

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • LindaBuquet
        LindaBuquet last edited by

        Hi Fiona,

        Unfortunately, it does not really matter if you set up multiple service areas, you'll still only have a chance of ranking in the city or near the area the business is actually located. (Depending on competition.)

        And also, since you'll just be moving there, you may not rank well at 1st compared to established businesses that have been there for a long time. The algo is like a giant puzzle and there are lots of things at play that go into the ranking order.

        Moving can be challenging for your Google ranking, so I'd suggest reading the Moz Local Search Ranking Factors if you have not yet and be ready to start working to increase some of those ranking signals after you move. Using the Moz Local tool to try to either correct or build new citations to the new location would be important too.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • fionadoggett
          fionadoggett @LindaBuquet last edited by

          That does help, Linda, thank you. Although I'm in a quandary. If I register multiple service areas under my business listing, will my competition still rank higher than me if their business address is in London ? I assume that when Google are informed of my move to another town, my organic ranking for London-related keywords ("personal training in westminster") would be affected?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • fionadoggett
            fionadoggett @customerparadigm.com last edited by

            Thanks, Jeff, I have unchecked 'I serve customers at my address' and have added the locations I serve customers.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • LindaBuquet
              LindaBuquet last edited by

              There are a few issues I wanted to point out.

              1st off the address in your Google dashboard needs to be the real address you work from.  So if you move you MUST change it in dash. If you don't all kinds of problems could come up including duplicates and including your listing being deleted.

              Any time you move, it breaks NAP so you will likely lose ranking.

              If you move to a new city you will likely only rank in that city, not the previous city. (Depends on competition and proximity.)

              In either case you need to set service area and be sure address is hidden. But that service area does not affect ranking in any way at all. Ranking area is still determined by the location that's in dash, even though address is hidden.

              Hope that helps and best of luck!

              fionadoggett 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • MickEdwards
                MickEdwards @Shakur last edited by

                A reputable business will have a trading address on their site, therefore the actual trading address and listings will differ.  In this case every aspect of NAP will differ.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • BritneyMuller
                  BritneyMuller last edited by

                  customerparadignm.com makes a good point, however I've seen consistency & having a set office location work better.

                  https://moz.com/local/ does a great job of cleaning up consistency errors and is less expensive than Yext Business Listings.

                  Tips:

                  1. Submit a Change Of Address to G

                  2. Consistency, consistency, consistency.

                  3. Verify all major business listings for your new location.

                  4. Make sure your new location is on your website.

                  5. Schema markup never hurt.

                  Good Luck Fiona!

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Shakur
                    Shakur last edited by

                    Hi  fionadoggett,

                    The thing is that you do not need to tell Google you are moving. Remember that you are working online, so you can hold your business location just for Google. Anyway i have seen many times in google places two different locations of the same business (but in the same city) so, may be is possible to hold both of them.

                    Good luck

                    MickEdwards 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • customerparadigm.com
                      customerparadigm.com last edited by

                      Yes, unfortunately if you change the address that you have listed on your Website, along with the address you have for a Google+ page, then you might start to have issues with local search results migrating to Sufolk instead of London.

                      My recommendation: Change your Google+ listing to a Service-area business

                      For local business search, you'll want to set up the business so it not based on the physical location / address (i.e. your new home in Sufolk), but serves a greater area (i.e. London). In order to do this, you will need to set up your Google+ account as a Service-area business on Google.

                      This is perfect for a trainer, local plumber, tree trimmer or construction crew that works at customer's locations (either homes or businesses) vs. your home address.

                      My recommendation would be to go here:
                      https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038163?hl=en

                      ... and set up your service areas based on the zip codes or cities that the business serves.

                      You also have the option to check or uncheck, "I serve customers at my business address."

                      You might need to go through another round of verification to make this change, however.

                      I hope this helps!

                      Thanks,

                      • Jeff
                      fionadoggett 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
                      • 1 / 1
                      • First post
                        Last post

                      Got a burning SEO question?

                      Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                      Start my free trial


                      Browse Questions

                      Explore more categories

                      • Moz Tools

                        Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                      • SEO Tactics

                        Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                      • Community

                        Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                      • Digital Marketing

                        Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                      • Research & Trends

                        Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                      • Support

                        Connect on product support and feature requests.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • Trendi

                        How to add multiple locations to an existing GBP

                        multiplelocationsgbp gbp help

                        Hi, I'm having trouble finding the option to add multiple locations to an existing GBP account. Can somebody help me?
                        I believe it can be done throught Google &/or MOZ.
                        Thank you,

                        Local Listings | | Trendi
                        0
                      • GrouchyKids

                        Trading As Business Name

                        Some businesses are set us with a company name but trade under another name (or numerous other names). What's the best way to handle this when it comes to Knowledge Graph & Schema.org and what about NAP consistency? Am assuming the only way to handle this is to do something like this: Blue Widgets Ltd trading as Cars UK Or is there a better way?

                        Local Listings | | GrouchyKids
                        0
                      • ichorstudios

                        Google Business Listing with no physical office location

                        Hey, everyone! As a business owner who works from home and doesn't have a physical office location. Is setting up a Google business listing without location going to hurt my local search ranking? Should I get a virtual office so I have a physical location? Thank you!! 😃

                        Local Listings | | ichorstudios
                        0
                      • Patrick_at_Nebraska_Medicine

                        How do you fix a Google My Business Location Issue if the road doesn't yet exist on Google Maps?

                        My core question is just: How do you fix a Google My Business Location Issue if the road doesn't yet exist on Google Maps? Do I have any other options other than to just wait on Google to catch up with reality? Here's the background: I work for a hospital. We just opened a clinic on a street that is real and has a U.S. Postal Address, but Google Maps doesn't recognize it, and redirects people to a house . This is our postal address: 8343 S 168th Ave Omaha NE 68136-1677 If a patient enters the following into google maps, 8343 S 168th Ave, the location the map autofills the wrong zip code, and sends them to a home that is on S 168th Ave. (where in theory a home would exist if it had that home number). The road does exist in that portion of town. If a patient enters 8343 S 168th Ave, Omaha NE 68136, google maps takes you to the correct location, but it automatically changes Ave to St. The verified Google My Business listing also lists it as Street, even though on the back end I've put in the word Avenue, and it shows up in the right place. If however someone just searches by name "Chalco Clinic" the right Google My Business comes up. This is the Google My Business page I'm referring to: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Nebraska+Medicine+-+Chalco/@41.1754796,-96.1787153,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xf77aefb4e27f865!8m2!3d41.1754796!4d-96.1787153 And even though it says it's on a Street, on the back end of the claimed listing I've used "Avenue". In case it matters, this is the landing page for the location: https://www.nebraskamed.com/chalco

                        Local Listings | | Patrick_at_Nebraska_Medicine
                        0
                      • Davey_Tree

                        How to Rank in Yelp

                        Hello everyone! I manage SEO for a pretty large brand that has close to 100 office locations nationwide. In the last year we have completely revamped our Yelp pages. This has been a great secondary source of traffic and conversions for us because of the type of industry we are in. The problem is, it can be exponentially better if we were more visible. We have done almost everything we can to make our pages as good if not better than almost any competitor regardless of geographic location. We even have the enhanced profiles (extortion) that remove competitors ads from appearing on our listings. Here is what we have done in the last year to each listing: Uploaded tons of photos Increased reviews Added proper categories Fine-tuned all of our CTAs Added in a unique and optimized business description ( Available with enhanced profiles) Set the proper service area range on their map Increased our review response rate ( both negative and positive) to 100% Still, even after months and months have gone by we struggle to rank on the first page for our service category. Doing manual searches often turn up competitors, who do not even have their listing claimed, have no photos, little reviews will rank higher than us. Even though we have an account rep because of our business size, bringing this issue up to them is about as useful as talking to a blanket. They push CPC so hard that its the last thing they are willing to help with. It has gotten to the point where I am honestly starting to believe in a self-curated conspiracy theory that they purposely hold larger brands back in organic to sell CPC harder. Obviously certain brands that hold the branding clout like a "Best Buy" would be hard to get away with. But still, we do all the right things and we are getting very minimal results compared to where we should be. Has anyone else had issues with Yelp or have any ideas on some steps we could take to appease their particular algorithm? Thanks! -Ben

                        Local Listings | | Davey_Tree
                        1
                      • RosemaryB

                        How can I submit Baidu business listings if I live outside of China?

                        A client of our wants to manage business listings for three locations in China.   We wanted to submit to Baidu but from what I've learned this is highly regulated (you live in China, pay a fee and call them to confirm). This is the only article I could find about submitting to Baidu: http://www.nanjingmarketinggroup.com/blog/baidu/how-can-baidu-maps-help-my-business Are there any conduit or 3rd party services available that can handle this? Thanks

                        Local Listings | | RosemaryB
                        0
                      • PeteC12

                        Local Search and Schema.org - Do I need to tag up the "same as" Property to all my citations to help with local rankings?

                        Hi All, We have implemented Schema.og on our website and this also includes the local business schema for all of our branches.However I've read an article (see below ) which says we should also be doing "same as " property and linking this to ALL of our citations such as google plus page , yelp , bing places, city search etc etc  as this will help with citations. I am wondering if anyone has done this ? - And if so , has this helped with local rankings etc - I don't really want to invest the extra costs to get this done if I can't find anywhere that says its made a difference - The article from whitespark - says - "when you create new citations for your business (or for your client’s), it’s a waiting game hoping that Google and the other search engines will find your new citations quickly and make the connection between those listings, the business, and the website. The “sameAs” property can help make that process much quicker _and _easier.  Schema.org explains that the “sameAs” property is used along with the “URL of a reference Web page that unambiguously indicates the item's [or business’] identity.”  By using the “sameAs” property in your NAP schema markup, you can tell search engines that the business you’ve marked up is the same one found at a certain citation URL Of course, Google+ isn’t the only important citation source.  There’s also Bing Places, Facebook, Yelp, Citysearch and a few others. The nice thing about many schema.org properties is that you can use them multiple times in your markup." I am wondering what peoples thoughts were and whether they has implemented this and if so , did it help ? thanks Pete | [sameAs](http://schema.org/sameAs) | URL  | URL of a reference Web page that unambiguously indicates the item's identity. E.g. the URL of the item's Wikipedia page, Freebase page, or official website. |

                        Local Listings | | PeteC12
                        1
                      • localtrifecta_im

                        What To Do With Two Business Having The Same Name?

                        Hi friends, We have a client who is in a peculiar predicament... essentially his business and his biggest competitor share the same name. Officially on their business licenses they are differentiated by the year they were each established, but in all their marketing, on their website, and in the community they are both known by the exact same name. When the company name is searched for, the competitor shows up #1 organically with the map pin as well as in the knowledge graph, and our site shows up number 2 without any any map pin or Google+ page site link or anything. We thought we could differentiate ourselves by changing his Google+ page name to his official business name (with the date) and building a bunch of really good citations with that official business name, but we still haven't made a dent for his branded keyword, and our Google+ page site links aren't even showing up. Has anyone run into a situation like this and any suggestions?

                        Local Listings | | localtrifecta_im
                        0

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • Local Citation Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter
                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.