Google+ Local Listing - No Physical Address
-
Hi everyone,
I have a client who won't be renewing his lease for where he conducts his business. Instead he will be working from home. That being said, he does not wish to have his personal address details showing within his local listing.
Is there any other way to still show for Google Local without a personal or business address? Is a PO box possible, other there any other alternatives?
Thanks in advance.
Leo
-
That's great to hear, Leo, and we are so glad to have you here!
-
Thanks Miriam for the additional resource.
I'm new to the community but seeing the level or responses I received I must say you all are fantastic and incredibly helpful.
Thanks again and all the best.
Leo
-
Hi Leo,
Tom has linked to a very important piece from Local Visibility System regarding directories that allow you to hide your address. The author, Phil Rozek, actually wrote a more recent follow-up piece to this, so do check this out here:
So, start with the article Tom linked to and then follow up with the one I've linked to, as it provides further citations sources that enable one to hide the address.
If the client does want to explore options other than his home as his location, then P.O. Boxes and Virtual offices must be avoided. Instead, he would need to rent a real office - perhaps from a company like Activspace.com, which gives you a real front door and phone hookup. But, honestly, countless businesses are run out of the home and Google gets this. Fortunately, many of the top directories support the hide-address feature, and while there are some directories your client won't be able to be listed in, putting him at something of a disadvantage in comparison to competitors who don't need to hide their address, there are still many place he can be listed.
Do be prepared, of course, to follow up this change of address with a great big citation cleanup campaign so that you can bring all mentions of his old address into compliance with his new location.
Good question! Glad you asked it!
-
Thanks for your thorough response Tom. Much appreciated.
-
Hi Dana,
Thank you that means a lot to me.
Your friend,
Thomas
-
Excellent answer Tom. I tuned in because I didn't know the answer to this one and yours was superb.
-
You must do fase to face business at the address
-
Hi Leo,
No google no longer use just a po box for google
Business Location: Use a precise, accurate address to describe your business location.
- Do not create a listing or place your pin marker at a location where the business does not physically exist. P.O. Boxes are not considered accurate physical locations.
- If you need to specify a mail box or suite number within your physical location, please list your physical address in Address Line 1, and put your mail box or suite number in Address Line 2.
- Use the precise address for the business in place of broad city names or cross-streets.
- Do not create more than one listing for each business location, either in a single account or multiple accounts.
- Individual practitioners may be listed individually as long as those practitioners are public-facing within their parent organization. Common examples of such practitioners are doctors, dentists, lawyers, and real estate agents. The practitioner should be directly contactable at the verified location during stated hours. A practitioner should not have multiple listings to cover all of his or her specializations.
- Departments within businesses, universities, hospitals, and government buildings may be listed separately. These departments must be publicly distinct as entities or groups within their parent organization, and ideally will have separate phone numbers and/or customer entrances.
- Businesses that operate in a service area, as opposed to a single location, should not create a listing for every city they service. Businesses that operate in a service area should create one listing for the central office or location and designate service areas. Learn how to add service areas to your listing.
- If you don't conduct face-to-face business at your location, you must select "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations" under the "Service Areas and Location Settings" section of your dashboard, and then select the "Do not show my business address on my Maps listing" option.
- Do not include information in address lines that does not pertain to your business’s physical location (e.g. URLs, keywords).
- Anytime the address for your business changes, you’ll have to verify again. You also won’t be able to update the business’s name until the verification process is complete.
https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en
http://searchengineland.com/investigating-google-places-hypocrisy-for-address-less-businesses-59998
Hop this was of help,
Tom
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
-
Google images not showing on SERP
Hi, I recently noticed that after a specific name search, Google images on the 'Web' SERP are no longer showing up. About a month ago, there were atleast 4-5 headshots of this particular person showing up whenever his name was searched. Now no images are showing, just the ten organic links and two links from adwords campaign we have going. The images are still optimized and some are even from editorial sites. Does anyone know what may have caused the images to disappear and what we can do to bring them back to the main SERP? (Not sure if it matters but we are in Canada) Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | Lorne_Marr0 -
Multiple Vacation Rentals Local Listings
A client of ours is a vacation rental company with over 50 properties (each property is only marketed through this company). They recently asked if they could add each rental property as a listing in Google Places, Bing, Yahoo, etc. I've been doing research on whether this is advisable or can hurt them in some way. If anyone has had a similar situation, any advice would be highly appreciated. Thanks.
Image & Video Optimization | | naymark.biz0 -
Tips for improving google places page
link here When I started working on this page he had multiple incorrect listings. I removed the incorrect ones and created this page. It has been confirmed via postcard and up for several months now. I have the profile filled out to 100% completion. Yet it does not show up very high in local map results. A ton of the business that do show up higher have profiles that are incomplete. Many of them show their address when they do not serve customers at their location. So it is a bit aggravating. Any suggestions to make this profile rank higher? I have been creating more citations through whitespark and working on the actual site itself.
Image & Video Optimization | | Atomicx0 -
Google Places Bulk Uploader
Hi we have 15 stores we want to transfer over to our main google places account. We can only claim them with google places bulk uploader. So from what i have read, i have to add each store to the spreadsheet then request bulk upload. Since these google places listings already exist, will the listings i create (via the spreadsheet) simply merge with the old ones? Or could there be a chance of the creation of duplicate listings (how can you avoid this). And is it necessary to add latitude and longitude points (because you don't have to add them)? The goal is to add the old listings into a our Google Places account, and can only use the bulk uploader. Thanks,
Image & Video Optimization | | Mattcarter08
George0 -
Looking for provider for Local Submissions and Feed management
I'm looking for a recommendation of a provider that can completely manage the submissions to Google, infoUSA, Localeze, and Axciom for a business with ~300 locations. Anyone have a good recommendation?
Image & Video Optimization | | DotCar0 -
Australian Service that Allows you to Control all your Local Listings
Hey, After a few stumbles upon a variety of services that allows you to manage all your local listings from the one profile (the latest one was Yext.com). It got me thinking - is there an Australian equivalent? My research revealed nothing. Thanks.
Image & Video Optimization | | LukeyJamo1 -
Google Images
Hi, I'm setting up a Barcelona guide as a hobby: barcelonacitybreak.com. Naturally I take care to use good alt-tags, checking Google images I see one of the photos I took listed as number one: "hibernian bookstore barcelona". There is no doubt that this is the photo I took myself, but when I place the mouse over the photo the origin is listed as:http://www.auladirectiva.com/. What is even more worrying though is that when I press the image I automatically download this: "Antispy 2011" from http://protectionxpscannermaster.com! Evidently some kind of "anti-virus" program. How is this possible?
Image & Video Optimization | | vibelingo0 -
Why does google places keep deleting the categories i set?
I have probably set them for each of my storage locations over 20 times now. They stick for a week, only to find them have all been deleted once again. Also, why are my competitors able to choose custom categories, where as I am not?
Image & Video Optimization | | adriandg0