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.
Address consistency issue between GMB and directories
-
We have a mortgage broker client, ABC, who shares an address with another business, XYZ who is a loans company. A previous SEO agency created GMBs for these 2 businesses using the same physical address and recently, we had to resolve this issue of duplicate address with Google. ABC was happy for us to fix the issue up by putting a unit no. "A" thus making their address "#7A Smith Street" and business XYZ now has #7B on their GMB.
Our question is will this affect consistency if we were to build citations without "#7A Smith Street" but just using "7 Smith Street" which is their REAL physical address? Business XYZ has also just contracted us for SEO which means we will end up building citations for 2 businesses with the same business address (but different phone numbers). Should we actually continue using "#7A" and "#7B" for citation building even though that's not what their address is?
Thank you in advance for your response!
-
Hi Miriam,
Hope you're much better now!
Thanks heaps for your informative response as well as Joy's article. The only reason we'd come up with a unit number 'A' and 'B' for the 2 clients was to resolve the issue of duplicate address with Google. We had to resolve an issue with ABC's GMB with the help of a Google Business consultant and that's how they noticed business ABC and XYZ shared the same address (but both GMBs managed to be verified). We tried explaining to no avail that it was possible in Australia for 2 businesses to share the same office premise (with no separate entrance, they're not on different levels, they do not occupy different rooms within the same office space). Hence, we finally thought to 'resolve' it by creating unit numbers to fix the issue of duplicate address on G+.
What a 'fix'!
-
Hi Gavo,
Sorry for my delayed reply. Had to take a few sick days off.
So, there are a few rather complex different aspects here. I'll try to hit everything:
-
If they are two legally distinct companies, then, yes, they can both have a GMB page. Be sure they've each got their own phone number and website.
-
You should not add fictitious suite numbers to businesses. If you get a legal suite number from the post office, that's okay, but Google's guidelines wants you to represent your business exactly as it appears in the real world. Anything else is a violation of the guidelines.
-
Now we start getting complicated. The truth is that Google doesn't even recognize suite numbers for most businesses, as recently highlighted by Joy Hawkins in her guest post here at Moz: https://moz.com/blog/7-citation-building-myths-plaguing-local-seo. So, there's that. Basically, if you have suite inconsistencies across your citations, it's not believed to be a big deal SEO-wise, though it can be very confusing for customers trying to find you (making it a big deal in a different way) All this being said, please refer back to point #2 - Google doesn't want fictitious location info in the address.
-
And, finally, the fact that the two businesses share an address and categories means that one or the other of them may be filtered out by Possum in the local packs/finders. So, ranking issues may be a pain in the neck here. Hat tip again to Joy here: read point number 2 in her SEL article about Possum: http://searchengineland.com/everything-need-know-googles-possum-algorithm-update-258900 When last I looked, having separate suite numbers did not enable businesses in the same building/same category scenario to escape Possum. So, it will be important to explain to the business owner that their results may play hide-and-seek due to this issue.
So, there you go: a real crash course in the complexities of the scenario you've described. Hope this helps illuminate some of the details.
-
-
Hi Miriam,
Good questions - they both share the same GMB categories and they are indeed legally two unique businesses.
-
Hi Gavo,
Quick questions: Do these 2 businesses share the same Google My Business categories and are these legally two unique businesses?
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
-
GMB images not appearing on SERP results?
Hi Guys, we uploaded images in our GMB dashboard but they are not appearing on the SERP results example: Any ideas on how to get them to show on search result page? See example: https://cl.ly/8c5694604d17
Local Listings | | brandonegroup2 -
Places.SinglePlatform.com "Menu" links on your GMB listing?
I just experienced this and after lots of frustration was able to figure out how it happened and how to fix it (keep reading). **HOW: **So apparently Google did a deal with Constant Contact which owns Singleplatform.com that allows them to publish edits to ANY local business and they have used this to SPAM entire categories of local businesses by adding in a "Appointments" and/or "Menu" link to the Google My Business listing for search/maps and they have done it in such a way that it is extremely difficult to remove/fix. (NOTE: they are not listed in Google's list of 3rd parties which automatically add info to your listing....https://www.google.com/maps/reserve/partners) **THE PROBLEM: You have a link to a menu or appointment page that you did not add and can not edit. **The options for setting a URL for "Menu" and/or "Appointment" (and a few others https://support.google.com/business/answer/6218037) are tied to the Primary Category set on your GMB listing and are only available to certain categories. FIXING: You would think if you are a verified owner of your GMB listing, it would be simple - but Google/SInglePlatform.com have gone to great lengths to make it more difficult.... Step 1 - Make sure you are a verified owner of GMB listing Step 2 - Change your Primary category on the business to one of the categories which supports the link in question (no definitive list, but I know setting Primary to "Restaurant" will get you Menu and "Interior Designer" will get you an Appointment link) Step 3 - Save the new category Step 4 - Now you will have the option under your "URLs" section of GMB listing. Step 5 - Change the URL from the SPAMMY link to a relevant page you control and Save Step 6 - Change Primary Category back to what you want.
Local Listings | | arowland2 -
GMB best practice for chiropractic office (individual vs. business pages)
For a chiropractic or other doctor's office with multiple doctors, should each have their own personal Google My Business page page AND a business page for the practice? If they just have a business page now, is it worth creating a page for each of the individual doctors? And what if some of them have different focuses (like a acupuncturist and chiropractor), does that mean you should make individual doctor pages when you otherwise wouldn't bother? And IF we should create pages for the individual doctors, should they all have the same address and website since they work in the same practice. Curious if there is a best practice for this... has anyone seen positive or negative results with or without the individual doctor pages? Thanks!
Local Listings | | Mike-i0 -
Issue in "Suggest an Edit" feature of Google My Business
"Suggest an Edit" feature of Google My Business is allowing the competitors to change your business details, that too without your prior permission! I have put together a piece on the issue we faced and you can review the same here: https://www.kvrwebtech.com/blog/issue-in-suggest-an-edit-in-google-my-business-is-it-a-bug-or-a-major-pitfall/ What are your thoughts on the same and what should be the right solution?
Local Listings | | varun18001 -
Different Phone Numbers in GMB/onsite
Hello All! I have an issue. I have a local business with multiple addresses, In order to start doing some conversion optimization I need to know where are the leads coming from, my assumption is that part of the leads come from phone calls directly from the google my business listing that appears in the local pack and some come from the website itself. Here's where the problem lays, I cannot understand how many calls come from each platform, Google My Business analytics provides a very high number that doesn't fit with my reports (i have a CRM that can track calls), the numbers are inflated in hundreds of %. The solution i thought of was implementing a different phone number in my website to track the leads, the problem is the NAP, which will be different. Another solution I thought of was implementing an additional phone number in Google My Business, and adding that additional phone number to the local landing page, displaying the new phone number as the main number on the page and leaving the old number in the schema markup. Does this solution seems fit? do you have another suggestion?
Local Listings | | OrendaLtd0 -
Local SEO business name issue due to aggregator
So I work for a college and we have multiple locations. My tactic has been always to keep the name the same for all of them (no city name), and then change the address and phone number for each. But there is 1000s of college listings websites out there that aggregate college and school data from the same source: the US government. Now the way that they have most, if not all, multi-location colleges listed is: "college name-city name". I can see the value in that, but I guess I'm just wondering what to do since it obviously can't be changed. Should I revert all of our listings as "college name-city name" to match the 1000s of listings that have it that way? I've been under the impression that I should leave the city/town name out of the name, but I'm just wondering what you think best practices would be? Thanks
Local Listings | | TomBinga1125
Tom0 -
Listing a physical address on an ecommerce website?
Hey Mozzers! Got a question for you. I’ve been assigned my first ecommerce client. He doesn’t want to list his physical business location, as he fears that including his address will hurt him on a national level (he ships all over the world). He’s not particularly interested in ranking locally, although he wouldn’t mind it. He only wants to show a PO box address. Will this help or hurt him? I believe it’s the latter. Also, he has 16 shipping points across the U.S. Is it helpful to add these cities and states to the site? Thanks in advance! -Kanya
Local Listings | | RainmanCreative0 -
Google is associating the wrong address with my website in SERPs
I've dealt with submitting address change information to Google (and Yelp, YP, etc.) when they have somehow scraped the wrong address or phone number. This is a little different. I work for the parent company with multiple companies of similar names making up the family of companies. What's happening is that people are searching for one of our companies (Lynden Transport) and getting the correct website results to pop up, but the address/phone # shown below the URL and in the local results screen is for one of our other companies (LTI, Inc.). Customers should be seeing a Fife, WA address but instead are seeing one for Lynden, WA. I've attached a marked up screenshot to better those what is happening. At least customers are generally finding their way to our company but it's causing quite a headache for our customer service reps and customers as they get transferred back and forth on the phone, and confusion for customers unfamiliar with our office locations. I've clicked on the "Send Feedback" link at the bottom of Google and explained what was happening, but beyond that I'm not sure what to do. The information presented isn't wrong, it's just being associated with the wrong company. It seems like a Google logic error and not something I can control or edit. Any ideas? moz-ltia.jpg
Local Listings | | RyanD.0