Potential sexaual harrassement issues in adding home address to website
-
Hello Google Local Experts
I'm a little stress, to put it mildly. I have been working hard to get to grips with Google+ and Google Local. I have followed all the advice on Moz that I can lay me hands on.
Following advice, I have added my private address (in rich text snippets) to the header of my own site. I've not felt particularly comfortable about doing that, but it's clearly one of the messages Google Local requires to be sure that your site is authentic.
My concerns got concrete last evening when a new follower on Google+ started to send me private messages - culminating in asking where I lived. Despite family demands I went straight to my site and removed my house number. Now I know I'm messing up my NAP - but Ahh - my About section points straight to my site which at that point had my full address in Bold on each page of my site.
I really am upset about this and think that Google should be rethinking their demand for displaying a companies address on the site. If you are self employed you are put in a vulnerable position which is morally questionable.
Please would someone give me some advice on the best way to address my worries in the short term?
Please could someone with a bit of clout point this potentail danger to women out to the powers that be in Google?
-
Thanks
-
Hi Catherine,
Please don't worry that you seemed over-anxious. Being safe is so important, and I'm so glad if I was able to help a little. Wishing you well!
-
Thank you Miriam, I am very grateful. I'll follow all your advice to the letter. I apologies if I came over a bit too anxious, it's just I was really rattled. Feeling safe at home is something we lucky westerners take very much for granted, until we feel threatened! Thanks again, taking positive, informed action is empowering!
-
Hi Catherine,
I'm terribly sorry to hear about this worrisome experience you have had and agree with you that people's privacy concerns are totally legitimate. Let's start with your most immediate concerns. If your address exists around the web and you are worried that someone is stalking you, you might want to start by contacting the local police to make them aware of the situation. They may have important advice for you that you simply won't get on a marketing forum. You might want to take extra precautions, such as ensuring that your home security is up-to-date and that your neighbors are aware of your concerns and can let you know if they see anyone strange on your property. Tell a friend or relative and arrange to check in with them via text or phone periodically each day so that they know you are okay.
The marketing side of this is important, but your safety comes first. If you fear for your safety, take precautions first.
Having said that, we can look at this from the marketing side as well. Let me clarify for you, and for others on this thread, Google's position on address.
-
If you have a brick-and-mortar address that accepts walk-in traffic during stated business hours (like 9-5), then Google does want your address to be visible on your website and your Google+ Local page. Typically, home-based business models do not accept walk-in traffic, but public businesses like retail shops and restaurants do.
-
If you are a home-based business, however, and do not accept walk-in traffic (maybe you accept in-home appointments, or you travel to your clients' locations to serve them), then you should be hiding your address on your Google+ Local page. As to publishing your address elsewhere, such as on your website or your third party citations, that is up to you. Yes, there is some indication that it's more trustworthy in Google's eyes if they can cross-reference your hidden address in their database with other instances of it they find non-hidden around the web, but you can still achieve visibility without publishing it. You can simply publish your business name and local phone number on your website if privacy concerns are paramount to you.
I recommend that you read the 2 following articles by Phil Rozek about local business directories, beyond Google Places for Business, that allow you to hide your address when listing your business:
As these articles will describe, there are many directories that allow you to be listed while hiding your address, and for a business owner with privacy concerns, these are great resources.
If you decide that it's important for your home address not to appear anywhere on the web, you can choose from one of two approaches:
-
Discover all references and edit them yourself.
-
Hire a company like Whitespark to do citation cleanup, the goal of which would be to get your address hidden where possible or to delete references where hiding an address is not allowed. Whitespark just launched a new citation cleaup service you might want to check out.
I want to stress, however, that either method will take time for edits to go into effect, and you will have to follow up periodically to be sure nothing has re-surfaced. In the meantime, I strongly advise that you put your safety concerns first and contact authorities and your personal support circle so that you can feel safer. Sending good thoughts your way.
-
-
Matthew's response is spot on. I just helped a client get a virtual office where he can receive mail and hold meetings when he needs to. Some may disagree, but legitimately using a virtual office space will work in the local space. My client's home is in a small town near a few larger cities - not ideal for local search because no one would search his industry with his town name. So we picked the largest city, which is only a few miles away, and for $75/mo he has an office in a major business hub that he can attach to his business. Along with home address, I am also apprehensive about using personal cell phone numbers for your NAP. To circumvent that, I secured a Google Voice number that is tied to his cell phone. So now his mobile number and home address (where he lives with his two young children) is hidden from public consumption.
-
Hi Catherine,
I'm with you on publishing my home address. Like you, my business is home-based. I opted to get a UPS store address instead of publishing my home address. However, despite my using that address for the last 11 years, this is apparently no longer acceptable practice. Same goes for PO Box addresses. (See http://www.billhartzer.com/pages/google-bans-ups-store-locations-for-google-maps-listings/ for example).
The other route some people have taken is to get a shared office space, somewhere where you do physically work (at least some of the time) and where you can receive mail. That way you can use that address instead of your home address. This can be expensive depending on what shared office spaces are available in your city. But, if getting into Google Local is important, it might be worth considering so that you have an address to use that isn't your home.
Good luck!
Matthew -
I don't want my home address or phone on my websites because I don't want people coming to my house on business matters and I don't want the phone calls. There are many legitimate reasons why a person would not want these things published.
But, Google has a definite bias towards people and businesses who list their name address and phone on a website. Here is a quote from one of Eric Schmidt's books, as quoted in a SearchEngineWatch.com article at http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2241704/Eric-Schmidt-Google-Will-Give-Higher-Rankings-to-Content-Tied-to-Verified-Profiles.
“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”
The part of this that bothers me is how difficult google makes it to speak to members of their product team such as adsense or adwords. Their business model is based upon allowing machines to do all of the work. Part of that is being one of the most-difficult-to-contact companies on this planet - yet they want all other companies to be on an available for interaction 24/7/365.
-
Hi Catherine
I am really sorry to hear this and it's obviously been very distressing to yourself and your family.
If you go to the user's profile page there is a little down arrow underneath their picture which allows you to Report/Block them and then gives you a range of options to say why. That may be a start and hopefully Google will be able to respond to you.
But if you think the approach was possibly a criminal offence I would also take it up with your local police
I hope that helps - a little.
Peter
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
-
Content spinning or duplicate content — a potential penalty or a safe technique?
Currently I’m working on the local UK business website www.londonlocksmith.london and I have to say a few practises of the competition got me confused. For example websites like these:
Local Website Optimization | | PayPro
http://lambeth-trusted-local-locksmith.co.uk/
http://clapham-trusted-local-locksmith.co.uk/
http://streathamhill-trusted-local-locksmith.co.uk/
http://hernehillse24-trustedlocallocksmith.co.uk/ All of them rank decent for the main regional keyword (e.g. Lambeth locksmith) and have an ok-ish DA. But as you scroll through these websites you see that the content is the same for all of them except for the location name, plus they all link to each other (see the footer). Now my question is: can this be a good technique for higher local ranking by creating dedicated websites (not just landing pages) with the target keyword in the domain name? And also: what is your experience with such ways of keyword targeting; what do you think in general about content spinning for local services with high competition?; what are your suggestions?0 -
Query results being indexed and providing no value to real estate website - best course of action?
Hi friends, I have a real estate website that has thousands of these type of query results pages indexed - http://search.myrealestatewebsite.com/l/43453/New_York_City_Rentals?per=100&start=159 What would be the best course of action to ensure those do not get indexed, as most provide no value whatsoever. 1. I'm limited to what I can do in the IDX, but I do believe I can modify the URL parameters for the website in Webmaster tools? Would this be correct? What would my parameter look like? 2. I have a webmaster tools for the website, then also the subdomain, which one would I submit the url parameter, or both?
Local Website Optimization | | JustinMurray0 -
Choosing the best domain for international website section
Hi, i made a question before but the answer not clarified me yet: https://moz.com/community/q/which-is-the-best-xx-or-com-xx-in-general-and-for-seo I mark as answered inadvertently. I want to know what you think about choosing ".es" or ".com.es" for create a section for Spain and redirect them from the homepage. Same for Mexico.
Local Website Optimization | | NachoRetta
I think that is not so important for SEO, but i am not completely sure about other factors.
Big marks like Toshiba use:
http://www.toshiba**.es**
http://www.toshiba**.com.mx** and Cocacola:
http://www.cocacola**.es**
http://www.coca-cola**.com.mx** ".es" for spain and ."com.mx" for mexico?0 -
Moving to a new Location: SEO Website
I'm moving to a different state and want to keep my business and clients in both locations. Is it better to build two separate sites, one for Ohio locations and create a new site for Tennessee content? (www.ohiosite.com & www.tennesseesite.com) Or is it best to keep one site, and install a second wordpress site in a separate folder like ( www.site.com + www.site.com/tennessee )
Local Website Optimization | | morg454540 -
What to do with localised landing pages on listings website - Canonical question
Hi Run a pet listings website and we had tonnes of duplicate content that we have resolved. But not sure what to do with the localised landing pages. We have everything pointing back back to the main listings URL http://www.dogscatsandpets.co.uk/for-sale-stud-and-adoption/ but haven't pointed the URLs that show pets for specific towns and cities eg http://www.dogscatsandpets.co.uk/for-sale/dogs-and-puppies/in-city-of-london/ back to the main url. Obviously this is giving us duplicate content issues, but these pages do rank in local search and drive traffic into the site. So my question is should we canonicalise the local pages back to the main url and if we do will this mean our local landing pages will no longer rank? Is there any alternatives?
Local Website Optimization | | dogscatsandpets0 -
Need Help: Trouble With Website and Analytics
Hey all, I have a client who I have been having the WORST time getting traffic and ranked for relevant keywords. I've tried so many things and have yet to see much progress after about 9 months. Site is mgmcdallas.com. I realized something REALLYY weird with this site a couple weeks ago. The business has a Dallas, TX address and really only services the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area. They recently started getting some of referral traffic from yelp.com/biz_redir. Weirdly, they've also been getting more sales calls and more salespeople filling out their contact form. Take January for example, they had 164 sessions and 119 of those were from this yelp referral. They DON'T advertise with Yelp, or get traffic from Yelp anywhere in Texas. You can see from below screenshot that they are all coming from California. analytics I've had our <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">SEO</acronym> and developer look into and we can't figure out what's happening. Any thoughts? iubnZdu
Local Website Optimization | | BWrightTLM0 -
Ecommerce Site with Unique Location Pages - Issue with unique content and thin content?
Hello All, I have an Ecommerce Site specializing in Hire and we have individual location pages on each of our categories for each of our depots. All these pages show the NAP of the specific branch Given the size of our website (10K approx pages) , it's physically impossible for us to write unique content for each location against each category so what we are doing is writing unique content for our top 10 locations in a category for example , and the remaining 20 odd locations against the same category has the same content but it will bring in the location name and the individual NAP of that branch so in effect I think this thin content. My question is , I am quite sure I we are getting some form of algorithmic penalty with regards the thin/duplicate content. Using the example above , should we 301 redirect the 20 odd locations with the thin content , or should be say only 301 redirect 10 of them , so we in effect end up with a more 50/50 split on a category with regards to unique content on pages verses thin content for the same category. Alternatively, should we can 301 all the thin content pages so we only have 10 locations against the category and therefore 100% unique content. I am trying to work out which would help most with regards to local rankings for my location pages. Also , does anyone know if a thin/duplicate content penalty is site wide or can it just affect specific parts of a website. Any advice greatly appreciated thanks Pete
Local Website Optimization | | PeteC120 -
Can to many 301 redirects damage my Ecommerce Site - SEO Issue
Hello All, I have an eCommerce website doing online hire. We operate from a large number of locations (100 approx) and my 100 or so categories have individual locations pages against them example - Carpet Cleaners (category) www.mysite/hire-carpetcleaners
Local Website Optimization | | PeteC12
carpet cleaner hire Manchester www.mysite/hire-carpetcleaners/Manchester
carpet cleaner hire london
carpet cleaner hire Liverpool patio heater (category)
patio heater hire Manchester
patio heater hire London
patio heater hire Liverpool And so on..... I have unique content for some of these pages but given that my site had 40,000 odd urls, I do have a large amount of thin/duplicate content and it's financially not possible to get unique
content written for every single page for all my locations and categories. Historically, I used to rank very well for these location pages although this year, things have dropped off and recently , I was hit with the Panda 4.0 update which i understand targets thin content. Therefore what I am int he process of doing is reducing the number of locations I want to rank for and have pages for thus allowing me to achieve both a higher percentage of unique content over duplicate/thin content on the whole site and only concerntrate on a handful of locations which I can realistically get unique content written for. My questions are as follows. By reducing the number of locations, my website will currently 301 redirect these location page i have been dropping back to it's parent category.
e.g carpet cleaner hire Liverpool page - Will redirect back to the parent Carpet cleaner hire Page. Given that I have nearly 100 categories to do , this will mean site will generate thousands of 301 redirects when I reduce down to a handful of locations per category. The alternative Is that I can 404 those pages ?... What do yout think I should do ?.. Will it harm me by having so many 301's . It's essentially the same page with a location name in it redirecting back to the parent. Some of these do have unqiue content but most dont ?. My other question is - On a some of these categories with location pages, I currently rank very well for locally although there is no real traffic for these location based keywords (using keyword planner). Shall I bin them or keep them? Lastly , Once I have reduced the number of location pages , I will still have thin content until , I can get the unique content written for them. Should I remove these pages until that point of leave them as it is? It will take a few months
to get all the site with unique content. Once complete, I should be able to reduce my site down from 40,000 odd pages to say 5,000 pages Any advice would be greatly appreciated thanks
Pete0