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.
Google My Business - two locations but same name and phone
-
Hello,
I manage SEO for an orthopaedic practice and I'm wondering what to do about their GMB listings. They have two locations, but I'm starting to think we shouldn't have separate GMB pages for the two locations because of the advice about other GMB questions I've been reading on this forum.
I read a helpful response that said you must ensure the following if you want to create separate GMB listings:
- Unique name
- Unique address (even if only a suite / office number)
- Unique phone number
- Clearly different categories on Google My Business
I can only ensure one of those - unique address. The business has the same name, phone number, and categories at both addresses.
What should I do about this? I would think it's important to list both addresses so that patients can be guided to the appropriate location, but is there a way to do that with just one GMB listing?
Thank you,
Susannah
-
Hi Jepaul4,
Thanks for asking your question. As long as the address and phone number for each location of your business is unique, do not worry about the name being the same. Google understands that a brand like McDonald's has thousands of locations with the same name at different addresses, and they will not consider your listings duplicates if they share a name but have different addresses and phone numbers, too. Hope this helps!
-
I have two different listings. All the things were different e.g. name, address, phone number. The name of one listing was "Fobtoronto" and other "FobToronto north york".
After reading google guidelines I changed the name of the listing FobToronto north york to "FobToronto".
Now the name of these two listings is the same. How will I make citations for both of them because of the same name?
Will Google consider my citations duplicated?
-
It's my very great pleasure!
-
Okay, very good to know. Thanks again for your excellent help!
-
Hi Susannah,
You're very welcome! Until the client can get a separate phone number for Location B, don't create the GMB listing or any other citations for it. Hopefully, you can share Google's guidelines with them and help them see the good sense in complying with Google's wishes on this. In addition to being guideline compliant, unique phone numbers greatly lessen the risk of accidental listing merges, so pretty much any multi-location business needs to make a basic investment in a unique number for each locale.
-
Thank you so much, Miriam! This is hugely helpful.
I'll check with my client to see if they do have a separate phone number for the two locations. It's possible they do and I just don't realize it. If they don't, do you have any suggestions for what we can do?
Susannah
-
Hi Susannah,
Google My Business listings relate entirely to physical locations. So, if you have 2 physical locations, you are eligible for 2 GMB listings. However, the practice should definitely assign a unique phone number to the second location, as Google wants the number you list to connect as directly as possible to the location.
Having the same business name is no problem at all, and, in fact, you should not add any modifying keywords to either name (like a city name). List the name exactly as it appears in the real business world for both listings.
Finally, in regards to web pages: it's ideal to create a unique landing page on the website for each of the physical locations. So, the GMB listing for Location A would link to the landing page on the company site for Location A, and the GMB listing for Location B would link to the landing page on the site for Location B. Location landing pages represent very powerful opportunities to target content to a specific set of users. Make the content unique and as helpful as possible, and don't forget to put the name, address and phone of the business at the top of its respective landing page. Finally, be sure the citation set you build for Location A links to landing page A, and the same goes for Location B.
You can read more about landing pages here on the Moz Blog: https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages
Hope this helps!
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
-
Incorrect Image is Displaying on Google My Business Knowledge Graph - Need Urgent Solution??
Incorrect Image is Displaying on Google My Business for our company. We have updated new image on google business But still, Google is fetching and showing old image on the google my business knowledge panel. What will be the right fix for this? Our site URL : www.yolobus.in
Local Listings | | AnkitS.19900 -
Does Google prioritise local domains?
I'm in Australia targeting Australian traffic. I often see US domains in the Google SERPS and wonder if that indicates an opportunity for local (Australian) domains to rank?
Local Listings | | Lazeh0 -
Adding Schema to multi-location Wordpress Website using Schema Pro
All, we're building a new version of our existing website using Wordpress and have both Yoast SEO Premium and Schema Pro installed. Our site has 70, a medical practice, has 70 different locations. Each one of our locations has a page tile like the following: "Los Angeles | ABC Dental". The first part of the site title is the town we're located in followed by our site name. Using Schema Pro, we're not sure about what to place into the "Name" field. You can see the direction from Schema Pro for local businesses here, https://wpschema.com/docs/add-schema-markup-for-a-local-business-page/ By default Schema Pro has the name field set to Site Title. However, using this on all 70 or our landing pages wouldn't provide the local aspect we want. It would just say ABC Dental. We changed this to use a new custom field where we could enter a more descriptive name. Using our page title example of "Los Angeles | ABC Dental", would we simply enter this into the name field of Schema Pro? If not, would we format this another way such as "ABC Dental Los Angeles" We could use some help in a strategy for Schema markup for multi-location businesses, in particular, the name field. All other information such as address, phone number, etc seems rather straight forward. Thank you for the assistance
Local Listings | | morciuoli0 -
Google listing only appears when I move / zoom in or out of the map
Hi everyone, We are having an issue with this local business. The Google listing isn't immediately appearing on the map. You have to move the map or zoom in and out for the listing to appear. I find this really odd as our competitors - with no reviews and way further in proximity - are appearing with no issues. The listing is only about 4km where I'm doing the search, while competitors with no reviews are about 20km away. We are ranking in the top 5 organically for the search term I used (pool renovations brisbane), but nowhere in local unless the map is moved. When the listing appears, sometimes the pin also looks grey instead of red, while others are red (if that makes sense). On top of this, their organic rankings have also been on a downward trend since June. I'm currently doing a backlink audit to see if it's contributing to the issue. If anyone also has other ideas, could you please let me know? Thanks.
Local Listings | | nhhernandez1 -
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 | | ichorstudios0 -
[Local Search] Do you get penalized by using a Google Voice number for each seperate business location?
My client is expanding and opening up separate locations and I will be getting all their online business listings up and running. The client wants to use a single 1-888 number for all locations, however, it was my assumption that they would need a local number for each location to improve their ranking. Could I suggest using free Google voice numbers that get forwarded to their 1-888 number or will Google discredit us for this?
Local Listings | | aedesignco0 -
Google points of Interest / POI
Hello, Looking for some guidance on how to appear and get listed in Google Points of Interest in the Search Engine Results Page. Like when searching for "attractions Seattle" at the top of the SERP these listings appear. Cannot seem to find some good resources on the topic as well. Thanks Conrad
Local Listings | | conalt1 -
Should my website link to my google business listing given that I already link from google business to my website ?
I have a website with individual Location Landing Pages for each of my Depots. I also have individual Google Local Business Listings for each of my depots. Should I have a link from my Website Location Landing Pages to the associated Google local Business listings or not ?... Given that I already have a link on my Google Business listing to the relevant Location Page on my website. I wasn't sure whether linking both ways would be more beneficial thus enforcing things better or whether it's not needed to link both ways . thanks Pete
Local Listings | | PeteC120