Is specifying a floor descriptive enough for Google Places?
-
Hello everyone,
I have a quick question regarding Google Places. I have a client who operates her business in a building with multiple other businesses. This address is completely legitimate and our client provides fitness services at this location. We have asked her for a more specific location, but she does not have a suite or room #. The best we can do is the floor #, but there are other businesses on her floor as well.
Would this lack of specificity affect her ability to rank in local results? There are 4 other businesses at the address. If we provide strong and relevant citations, will this be enough?
Thank you and my apologies if this has been asked before. I searched the previously asked question but didn't find what i was looking for.
-
Hi Robert,
Thanks for coming here with your good question. There are 2 important issues here.
- As First points out, sharing an address with other businesses is problematic. If your client's address duplicates that of even one other business, you can expect troubles ahead. Google will likely merge the info of the two businesses, meaning that your client could end up with the other business' phone number, reviews, or analytical data on her listing. So, sharing an address is out, unfortunately. The only exception to this included in the Google Places Guidelines (http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528) is this:
Some businesses may be located within a mall or a container store, which is a store that contains another business. If your business is within a container store or mall, and you'd like to include this information in your listing, specify the container store in parentheses in the business name field. For example, Starbucks (inside Safeway).
But, it doesn't sound like your client is within a container store or a mall, so I would not consider this truly applicable to the situation.
- I cannot recommend using a floor number. Even if the client has a distinct business name and phone number, I feel merging is going to be a likely outcome. Here is an excerpted user comment one a Mike Blumenthal post (http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/19/the-long-and-winding-tale-of-trying-to-fix-a-merged-listing/) regarding a merged business:
"We have had this problem for about a year and Google won’t fix it. They say it will be fixed but is not. Me and the other law firm have joined up and are both e mailing Ashley with the same case no. to try and convince Google to use our user data instead of assuming we are the same company.
Since the address uses a Floor number (Not a suite number) and a mail room sorts the mail, Google says it is the same business even though the other details like the phone number, are different. We both meet clients and have offices in several locations in the Inland Empire, as we both lease from the same leasing company. That is where the relationship ends.
I think the work around maye be to add an identifier after the floor number, such as -A, or -B. So it would appear like #400-A."
(emphasis mine)
You are always supposed to use the precise street address at which the client receives mail when creating any Google Local property. You are not supposed to add or subtract anything from the mix.
So what option does this leave your client with if he/she wants to participate in Local? Getting legitimate suite numbers assigned by the post office to the different businesses on the floor would be the only open road, as far as I can see. You will need to contact the postal service in the client's area, as well as all of the other businesses located on that floor to try to arrange this, if you can. Not a great solution. But as things currently stand, without your client having a distinct address, they are lacking one of the 3 key metrics for local inclusion which are:
-
A unique local area code phone number
-
A unique physical street address
-
In-person transactions with customers.
Hope my reply is, at least, helpful, even if it doesn't automatically solve the issue. Sincerely wishing you good luck!
-
Great Point Steve! Consistency in address and phone number is very important.
-
You're also going to want to make sure that the full address in your Google Places/Google+ Local listing is the same as the address used in your online citations. I.e, you don't want to have Floor/Unit number in the Google Places profile, and then just the plain old address in the rest of your online citations.
-
To answer your first question: Yes a floor is "descriptive enough" for Google Places. There are many businesses that have a floor as their true address.
The problem is that you have multiple business on the same floor and no other unique identifier, like a room or suite #. Are the other businesses listed on Google Places and/or have other local listings on the web?
If you are the only business listed with that address you probably wont have a problem at first, but may encounter issue in the future if other businesses on that floor decide that they want to get listed on-line.
One solution will be for all the tenants on that floor to agree to a unit # system.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
My wistia videos are not being index by Google. Does anyone know what can be happening?
I have the wistia site map on my robots.txt file and I also manually submit the site map to google. It shows that my videos were submitted successfully but they are not being indexed. Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | bedbugsupply0 -
Google Places Creation
Hello, I am currently managing 200 clients for which I have to create Google Places. Can I create 200 different places for each client, and manage all them from one Gmail account? If one client doesn't want to continue the contract, can I transfer the managing of the place to another account?
Image & Video Optimization | | cvissi0 -
Google Local Listings dropped in all major keywords
One of our websites had dropped dramatically in all of his major keywords over the past several days. He was ranked in the maps section in google (the old pages not the google plus pages) in the top 3 in his most important keywords and all of a sudden they dropped off the first page completely - not just down one or 2 places. Not sure what happened and how to fix it.. help please!!!
Image & Video Optimization | | levylevy0 -
Is it Possible to submit multiple sites on google places with single phone number? If you then please tell me how?
Is it Possible to submit multiple sites on Google places with single phone number? If you then please tell me how? Because i have multiple site but i have one phone number and i want to add all of my sites in google places. But i don't know how it is possible. Please help me to sort it out this problem. Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | KLLC0 -
Google+ Local/Places isn't displaying my suite #. Should I leave it out of NAP on other directories, too?
HI All, For some reason Google is not displaying the suite # for a client of mine in Google+ / Places. I've entered the suite # in the back-end of Google+ / Places and it shows there when I log in, but the public version of the listing omits it. So the question is, should the NAP in other directories omit it as well? Google knows it exists, but is choosing not to publish it... Thanks! Zack
Image & Video Optimization | | HammerandHand0 -
Help - Google places,a service my competitor has used...
I was just doing a bit of detective work on a competitors website and noticed they had employed the services of an SEO company. Anyway, i went on this SEO companies website and discovered they offer a service called "Google places". Now I have an idea what google places is (my company is registered with it) but how are SEOs using Google places as a method for SEO? And how can I copy this service to do this for my own website?
Image & Video Optimization | | copywritingbuzz0 -
Finding Pages with Youtube Embedded Videos in Google SERP
I'm trying to figure out a process to find specific youtube embed videos using Google search. But a lot of sites are not being returned. For example, I know that the following video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MnylRaQC3w) is linked to and embedded on http://gizmodo.com/5898438/watch-how-fender-builds-its-iconic-stratocasters However, I can't figure out a set of search terms to find that in Google. Searching for (1MnylRaQC3w Gizmodo) doesn't return the right page in the results. I'd like to figure this out so I could see everywhere a certain youtube video has been embedded.
Image & Video Optimization | | nixforsix0 -
Does each listing in Google plcaes need a seperate URL?
Hi We have a client who has several car dealership fracnhises located located across two suburbs - so we are creating a places listing for each (with a separate address and phone number). My questions is should each location also have a separate URL (the dealership only has one website covering all locations). The Google guidelines state that you must; Website & Phone: Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location as directly as possible, and provide one website that represents your individual business location. Use a local phone number instead of a call centre number whenever possible. Do not provide phone numbers or URLs that redirect or “refer” users to landing pages or phone numbers other than those of the actual business. Really appreciate any feedback!
Image & Video Optimization | | E2E0