NAP No mail delivered to physical location
-
Hello,
First question here on moz. I live in a small town, and some of my clients do as well. Some mail is delivered to physical locations, however most mail is delivered to PO Boxes. I have tried with some success to get the mail workers to flag Google and others post cards. Otherwise I am not able to verify ownership. Any ideas or help on how to verify businesses that don't get mail at their location would be great.
Dave
-
You're welcome, Dave. Good luck!
-
Miriam,
Thanks so much. I will try the troubleshooter.
Dave
-
Hi David,
While Ruben is correct that the use of P.O. Boxes is a violation of the Google Places Quality Guidelines, there is a chance that you can get help with this via the Google Troubleshooter located here:
https://support.google.com/places/
Click the contact button and go through the troubleshooter. You should see a blue 'Call Us' button appear in the form and if you can speak to a Google rep, they may be able to help you with the verification issue.
However, before you can do this, it's important to understand that any Google+ Local page you create must be based on the physical location of the business in question and not any associated P.O. box. So, for a client in this town, you'd need to create the listing, have postcard verification fail and then go through the troubleshooter in hopes of getting direct help from Google staff in verifying the validity of the business. This will be extra work on your part, and you should prepare you clients for this hangup by explaining Google's limitations in regards to small towns like yours where everyone picks up mail at the local post office. Be sure not to guarantee that you can get the listing verified for them, but tell them that you will make a best effort to make it happen.
Hope this helps!
-
Ruben,
Thanks for the reply. To clarify, these businesses have physical locations, they just don't receive mail at their location.
Any ideas in this scenario?
Thanks for your help,
Dave
-
Dave,
I would be careful about verifying businesses that do not have physical addresses or have clients at those physical addresses. Google is very clear about this being a violation of their guidelines. https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en
Granted, I'm not the google police, but it's something I would recommend you considering.
Best,
Ruben
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
-
Does Google Image Search consider meta data (EXIF) when looking for a location?
Does Google Image Search consider meta data (EXIF) when looking for a location? Is it essential to define the meta data in order to rank top with images?
Image & Video Optimization | | fduo0 -
Once you start fixing Local citations with correct NAP, is it normal for your rankings to plunge at first?
I strongly believe that I have received the most solid Local advice I could from these forums and have started (in just a few days) to make the needed corrections. At the same time I'm somewhat excited and optimistic that it will be a long journey but that it's a learning process. About 5 days ago, I set my website up with "City landing pages" and I started plundering through google, fixing and claiming and correcting as many citations as I could with correct NAP. The journey still continues today as I just got my Bing Local card in the mail and verified. I went to check my rankings on Google Maps, just to see if anything had changed and sure enough it had. My listing had been holding strong at page 10 (which drives me nuts) and now after 5 days of solid work its on page 18. I have to assume that because I'm stirring the dust perhaps Google is confused and maybe in a month or so things might start moving the other way? Thoughts?
Image & Video Optimization | | jonnyholt0 -
Google + local Multiple Locations
My client has three offices and I have created three separate Google + local listings for them - I have listed the specific locations page as the website address for each - Google specifies to add the coding to the homepage to link Google + however what do we do with the three different codes - does each one go on the home page or at the bottom of the specific landing page for that particular office?
Image & Video Optimization | | AllieMc0 -
Multiple Store locations Google Local
Hey there, Is it best to create an individual page for each store location? Or is it best to create one page and plot different locations? Thanks, Dan
Image & Video Optimization | | Sparkstone0 -
To have a location (that is really not a location)
So here is the problem that I am facing. The physical location of our business is located in a suburb of a large metro area market (which consists of 3 different cities). Our company services all of the cities located in the metropolitan area market. I have seen over the past year with Google+ and Google places that Google gives preference to businesses in local search based on their location (specifically to businesses that are located near the center of the city). My suspicions were confirmed by the following: http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml In the past we went out and played the game where we purchased UPS boxes in our service cities so that we can compete in Google local search local (recommendation from a SEO company that we were using at the time). I did not really want to do that, but at the time it seemed as though we had no other option with how Google was ranking businesses in those markets. Now Google has caught on to this strategy and has killed those local listings. It is frustrating that Google assumes that a listing should have higher rank based largely on physical location. We never had the intent of violating Google policy, but what are we to do? Not trying to play victim but it is true. My question is how can we rank extremely well in local search for the different cities of the metro area considering that we are physically located in a suburb? Has anyone else successfully overcame this obstacle? Any ideas on how we can rank well in Google+/Google Places in these cities? Frustrated Business Owner.
Image & Video Optimization | | dshelton0 -
Google Places Multiple Locations Strategy
Hi, I have client who is a psychology college that has multiple locations across the United States. We currently have a Google places setup for their main location which is in Chicago. They also have multiple locations in California and Washington d.c. My question is what is the best strategy for setting up Google places for each one of their locations? can it all be done from the Chicago Google places account or do I have to build out individual Google places accounts for each location. Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | MasonInteractive0 -
Can you get in trouble/get results by sub-dividing one physical address into suites for local search?
We have a client in our area that offers a multitude of home services -- plumbing, HVAC repair, landscaping, etc. -- out of one physical location. It makes it difficult for them to rank highly for all of their services in local search since many of the competitors that rank highly only offer one of the services that they do. They have come to me asking if they could create a Google place page for each service by making imaginary suites for their main address. So, for example, plumbing would be located at 100 Main Street, Suite A; and HVAC repair would be located at 100 Main St., Suite B; etc.? Seems like this is either a great idea or could get you into some Google trouble. Has anyone experienced anything similar? Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | monkeeboy0 -
One business location and several local business listings
Hi, I'm working for an apartment rental agency.The agency is based in one country/city and naturally the Google Places listing is shown when people search "apartments + location", but what to do when we expand abroad? Naturally we want to have a Local Business listing for "apartments + location 2" as well. Is it sufficient to have a "local office"? I see competitors have urls: www.domain/paris and www.domain/london that are listed in local search when searching " apartments + paris" and "apartments + london". Basically, the same site, different locations. I'm wondering if the solution is that simple?
Image & Video Optimization | | vibelingo0
