Google Places - Shared Office Space

[djreich]

Howdy,

A client of mine has a shared office space, where several other businesses share the exact same address, including the same suite number. I realize that this is likely one of the biggest issues holding them back in local/blended search results in their market, which is a very competitive one. (They do have a completely unique local phone number.)

They have tons of citations -- way more citations than anyone else at the same address -- so they are definitely the most visible. They are ranking pretty well -- top of page two in organic results (overall top 10 organic if you exclude the places results) and top of page 3 in places results for some select local search terms. But obviously top of page one as a blended result is where we want to be.

They have a lot of great content, a lot of quality links and citations. Out of all the competitors ranking ahead of them, a few do indeed deserve to be there, but most do not -- i.e. they have lower DA, PA, worse links, fewer links, no content / shit content compared to my client, and some even have incomplete Google profiles.

I really think this could be the sole issue holding my client back from appearing in blended results on page one.

What should we do? If I convince them to change their address, we'll have to update thousands of citations, many of which we don't have access to. In reality, we would be able to update some, but not all citations. This also could cause a short term rankings decline, and/or Google Places limbo for who knows how long!

Is it possible to overcome this problem if they keep the same address? In a less competitive market I would think it's quite possible, but I'm not so sure in this case.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!
David

[MiriamEllis]

Hi David,

Thanks for clarifying this about the suite number. Interestingly, I've been seeing reports of 'suite' being changed to '#' in Places this morning. Sounds like your listing is being affected by what may be a widespread change in Google's handling of spelling/punctuation of suites. Thought you'd like to know that.

The guidelines you are quoting:

Businesses with multiple specializations, such as law firms and doctors, should not create multiple listings to cover all of their specialties. You may create one listing per practitioner, and one listing for the hospital or clinic at large."

To my understanding, your client does not fit this scenario. He is not a practitioner within a business. He is running a separate business than the other businesses at the same address. Now, if he were one of four partners at a legal firm, then, yes, each lawyer could have his own Place Page + the main Place Page for the firm itself. But, at least as far as I've understood, this is not your client's situation, right?

I can see how you would arrive at the understanding that separate businesses at the same address would deserve the same treatment as partners within a single business, but in my experience, this is not how Google sees it. I have to stick by my original feeling on this - your client needs to have a unique suite number in order to avoid trouble down the road. I think your fears of future merging are appropriate. In your shoes, I would tell the client that they are going to have to set the record straight now, deal with the hassle of this, and hope to get things straightened out in the coming months with a great deal of elbow grease on your part.

And, don't forget: the Google Places Help Forum is now staffed. You can always open a thread there in hopes of getting individual attention paid to your listing. Don't cross your fingers...but it is happening more and more these days.

Hope my opinion is helpful to you on this.

Miriam

[djreich]

Hi Miriam,

Thanks for your response. My client DOES have a suite number. It's "Suite 400". There are several other businesses with the exact same address and suite number, because they all share the same office.

My point about #400, was that in the two other listings I came across for the businesses that share this address, Google has changed the adress on each of ours from Suite 400 (the official address) to #400. I was wondering if that could be some sort of signal: clearly Google recognizes these as the same address. Google hasn't merged our listings, but has tweaked the address slightly so that all appear exactly the same as #400. I could very well be looking for clues that don't exist

Since the location is not a mailbox, but a legit office space, to my understanding that's not against Google Places guidelines. It's difficult to find specific wording from Google, but I found this:

"Businesses with multiple specializations, such as law firms and doctors, should not create multiple listings to cover all of their specialties. You may create one listing per practitioner, and one listing for the hospital or clinic at large."

It would stand to reason that if a law firm can create separate listings for each practitioner, separate businesses that share an office would be able to create separate listings, as well. It says nothing about tweaking suite numbers and things like that. Clearly Google would never openly endorse that.

At this point, I'm not really worried about being penalized. I'm much more worried about being merged. And I'm even more worried about simply being stuck on page two.

I should also note that we have earned a fairly dominant first page position (organic and blended) for state-specific queries, as well as queries for their other office locations, a couple of which are also shared offices. All of these queries are less competitive than queries for the main location we've been talking about.

I'm also reluctant to change the address because I don't want to end up in a "pending" limbo for months -- which has happened to this client before with duplicate listings created by previous SEOs.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi David,

Thanks for coming to Q&A with your excellent question. I'm going to respectfully disagree with the conclusion that you should advise the client to keep going forward with the shared address. Clearly, this has worked relatively well so far, and that's the way things are with Places...you can go along with things that don't fit the guidelines for months or years...but if a penalization or merge happens, getting it fixed is truly daunting. Having a unique street address is part of the magic NAP combination that should be the basis of every Places record.

I think the client's greatest possible peril here is a merged record with the other businesses that share the office. His details, reviews and citations may get mashed up with those of the other businesses and the strength of his record may be a) sapped or b) disqualified.

My advice is to have the client set up a suite number with the post office or whatever authority is in place in his community. Definitely understand that this will involve a great deal of work in getting all of his citations/listings corrected, but it is work that will almost certainly have to be done at some point and putting it off only means more work later after more citations have accrued. And, I would much rather engage in this work now, before a negative action happens to the Place Page than after something bad has already happened.

What I am curious about is this: you state that the client has no suite number but that Google is listing one (400). Where is this coming from? Was there ever a suite number associated with the business? Could this be evidence that merging is already going on and that one of the other businesses has submitted a suite number but that it has become attached to your client's record as a result of conflation? I'm a little concerned about that.

At any rate, I would recommend that your client follow the standard procedure in this situation of getting a legal suite number assigned to him in the building to which he can receive mail. It may seem counter-intuitive to do this while things are going relatively well, but the client should be told that the happiness could end suddenly and drastically if Google takes any special notice of the situation going on in the building.

Hope these thoughts are helpful. Good luck!

Miriam

[JGar-28032]

OK cool. So we know that the address isn't specifically the problem.

When I say over-accommodate, I mean that sometimes I get clients who aren't even close to the city center. In those cases, we have to build substantially more citations, etc. to compete.

So let's look at those aspects. I can't believe I didn't ask you about reviews. Those are pretty important. Does your client have more, fewer, on-par reviews? Tab up the negative reviews vs. positive. Do you respond to any negatives?

I did a lawyer not long ago and I remember Google pulling judysbook reviews. And sometimes from NOLO. But I think Google doesn't pull from other sources like they used to (sorry Yelp). See if you have any links to more reviews. You might not actually see the reviews, but there will be a link for "reviews from around the web" or similar. If you see that there are listings to third-party reviews that your client doesn't have, get those. Hell, even if your competition doesn't have them, I would still head to Judy's Book and nolo and get listed, and try to solicit reviews as much as you can.

The reviews on the Google Places page are going to be more prominent/important, but those still have an impact.

I would keep the address as you have it. At this point it's more important to keep it as consistent as possible than to try and change it now.

While you're at it, where are you on the GPlace Page itself? Have videos and images? All that stuff? Don't stop when it says "100% complete" fill up the image and videos spots the best you can.

Alright, let me know about the reviews and completeness. I would try to get the "basics" as out of the way as possible.

I wrote (however ugly it may be) an eBook on this exact thing. Get all the foundation stuff under control first then poke at the detailed issues. I may be sending you on a goose chase for a second though as it sounds like you have this part under wraps. Just in case: http://seo-factor.com/ranking-in-google-places/

[djreich]

Josh,

Thanks so much for the response! Just to give you a bit more info, my client is a one-attorney personal injury practice, but his presence and budget make the firm seem much bigger than that, and he actually has several office locations.

Let me address some of your points directly.

• Some citations are years old, but most have been built over the past year. But compared to the competition, it's mixed. There are a few giant firm's he's competing with that are beating him in this respect, but most of his competitor's are way behind (in citations and everything else).

• The address is relatively close the city center. One other problem related to this though is that he has another office in a different city by address, but is also very close to this primary city's center too. i.e. 2 offices in different cites, both close to the same city center.

• What do you mean by "over-accomodate"? Specifically, build more citations? or concentrate on other aspects of the search marketing mix? It's frustrating because we're doing top-notch content and link building work that's clearly having an impact on search traffic and organic rankings. I mean, how many other law firms are creating infographics that get picked up by Mashable!?

Great idea to start searching for "keywords + city" for the other businesses that are sharing the office.

• I noticed that at least two of them are indeed ranking in blended results, albeit for much less competitive terms.

• I also noticed that the addresses that appear in Google Places are all exactly the same as my client's -- however, Google has adjusted all of them to appear in the same format that is different than the official address format we're using. i.e. instead of suite 400 as we, and I assume they, are using as their address, Google has changed it on all of our profiles to #400. What do you think that means?

So, I guess it sounds like this is an issue that we can overcome by keeping the address as is. My goal has always been to focus on earning quality links, but should I be doing more with citations?

Do you think future citations (and ones we can potentially adjust) should be in the format Google has changed them to, or the official address format that looks nicer?

Thanks again!

[JGar-28032]

Hey David,

Man, you certainly have your ducks in a row. I have a couple questions for you to consider. It's kinda weird dealing with Google Places as so much is so inconsistent sometimes. It can be so many little things that impact rankings.

How old are your citations? If you have competition that had tons of citations for a long time, and your client recently got theirs; it won't matter how many you have for just a bit. There's going to be a small element of waiting. Give it a month, see what happens.

How does you client's location relate to the competition? If they are all closer to the city center, and your client is much farther, that's usually the culprit. Then, you're going to have to over-accommodate a bit (which it actually sounds like you're doing, so good on ya).

---

Generally speaking, the shared space shouldn't hold you back. I say shouldn't because by design Google should be showing "locations at this address" depending on your search. If you have sufficient citations to confirm your address, address on the site, etc. then you should be ok. You can test it though.

Look at a few of the other businesses with the same address and search for their keywords (just like a....GASP...common user...yuck). See how they perform compared to their competition. It's a lot of digging, but if you see that there are places at that address that do indeed perform, then you know that it should be ok.

If you only see one listing that performs, and all the others do not, then you might have some issues. But from the way you describe it, you're already "performing" on some level, so I think you should be ok.

Let me know if my thoughts so far aren't it. I wanna hear more.