Getting Listed in Google Places
-
How do I get listed in Google Places if I don't have a physical address?
EG: I am a medical health insurance company in Colo Springs, Colorado, but service 20 cities?
What is the best procedure? Getting a mailbox at Mailboxes, etc. or UPS Store?
-
Hi Greg,
As Edward has correctly stated, anything other than an actual, physical address is not what Google 'wants'. That being said, there are tons and tons of such listings in their index, but even a cursory glance at Google's spam fighting history over the past two years is a big indication, at least to me, that they are more committed than ever to upholding their guidelines and weeding out anything they consider to be violating them.
So, honestly, it might well be possible to get away with something like this for a month, a year, three years, etc., but taking such a risk means a day of reckoning would be looming over the business ever day and the business owner would never know when to expect their rankings to suddenly tank.
At present, Google is still very much allowing home-based businesses in their index, providing they hide their addresses, so this is probably the most common solution in what I'm assuming is your case. And if you feel concerned about publishing your home address anywhere, here is a list of directories that also allow you to hide your address, and this can help you with your citation building:
-
Not a good idea:
http://www.searchinfluence.com/2012/03/google-places-virtual-office/
-
Thank you for the information! Very helpful. Do you happen to know if getting a mailbox at a UPS Store would work. When you get a mailbox here, your address is not PO BOX XYZ, they actually give you a physical address (same as their location), and your mailbox number is a Ste. number.
Thanks for any insight!
-
Hi Greg,
In order to qualify for Google+ Local (which was called Google Places in the past), your business needs to meet the following criteria:-
Have a unique, dedicated physical street address (not a shared address, not a virtual address, not a P.O. box or any other type of box)
-
Have a unique local area code phone number (not a shared number or toll free number) that matches the city of location
-
Have in-person transactions with customers, either at your place of business (like a restaurant) or at their locations (like a plumber.
If your business doesn't meet all of these requirements, you do not qualify for inclusion and should not create a local account.
If you do have in-person transactions with clients and are operating out of your home, and no other businesses are operating out of the same address, you can use your home address and local phone number as your location. However, you must be absolutely sure that you comply with Google's rules regarding hiding your address. All home-based businesses and businesses that go to their clients' locales to serve must choose the hide address function when creating their page or they will be removed or penalized.
And, be sure you create only 1 Google+ Local page for your city of location - do not create other pages for the other cities you serve. That's not allowed.
I recommend that you study the Google's Places Quality Guidelines to be sure you know all the public rules:
http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528In addition to this, there are 'unwritten' rules that apply to optimizing your Google+ Local Page that require study as well. For example, in writing your business description on the + page, do not put any geographic terms, your business name or any links in the copy. There are a number of little taboos like that that you'll need to be aware of in going into this in order to avoid penalties.
It's so critical to get this right. If Local SEO is all new to you, you might like to read this:
The Rudiments of Local SEO
http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1344Hope this helps!
-
-
Sign up for Google+ Local using your residential address, and then make your business address private in the listing. This will still list your city and you can set your service area to include the surrounding areas.
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
-
One keyword gone in Google SERPs - Fred?
I have an ecommerce site. One keyword, which I use to rank #1 for on Google years ago, I'm now completely gone from the SERP's as of a couple weeks ago. I'm scratching my head here, my other keywords don't seem to have changed much recently. Around mid-March of this year, which seems to line up with the Fred update, I noticed I went from page 3 to middle of page 1 for a few days with this keyword. It was a very happy few days. Then it slipped down and down and hovered around page 6. But as of a couple weeks ago, it's now gone. Before the Fred update, I changed a bunch of product pages within the keyword category that had duplicate content because they were kits of items arranged different ways. So instead of repeating the individual item descriptions over and over in the different kits, I changed the descriptions on the kits to links to the individual items within the kits. After the Fred update, at the end of March, I set all these kit item pages that I reduced to very thin content with just links to noindex. My theory is that the Fred update reset algorithmic penalties for a couple days as it was being introduced. So the penalty of duplicate content that I may have had was lifted since I took out the duplicate content, and I made it back to page one. Then as Fred saw I now had a new penalty of thin content, I got hit and slid back down the rankings. Now that I updated the pages that had very thin content to be noindex, do you think I'll see a return of the keyword to a higher position? Or any other theories or suggestions? I remember seeing keywords disappear and come back stronger years ago, but haven't seen anything like this in a long time.
Algorithm Updates | | head_dunce0 -
Where is this SERP listing of a product description coming from?
Google is showing a manufacturers product description below the ads and before the organic listings that I have not seen before, see the attached image. The bad part is instead of attributing it to the manufacturer it is attributing to one of our competitiors and placing thier link with the text. 1. Why is this happening? I can't find any schema or other mark-up on the page explaining where this content is coming from. 2. How do I combat this? I have not seen this type of SERP before. Any help is appreciated. HfYLGd0.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | groovecommerce0 -
Is Moz Domain Authority still relvant when it comes to Google ranking?
My understanding of Moz DA is that it is predominantly based on external links. Since Penguin I am noticing more and more websites ranking high in Google with a "low" number of links and certainly a low DA but quality and relevancy of content and also of offering. I understand that there was always more to ranking than DA but is it anymore even relevant to how a site will rank in Google?
Algorithm Updates | | halloranc0 -
Google penalty for one keyword?
Is it possible to get penalized by Google for a specific keyword and essentially disappear from the SERPs for that keyword but keep position for the brand (#1) and some other keywords (#4 and #7)? And how would you find out that this is what happened if there is no GWT message?
Algorithm Updates | | gfiedel0 -
Google Panda - large domain benefits
Hi, A bit of a general question, but has anyone noticed a improvement in rankings for large domains - ie well known, large sites such as Tesco, Amazon? From what I've seen, the latest Panda update seems to favour the larger sites, as opposed to smaller, niche sites. Just wondered if anyone else has noticed this too?Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | Digirank0 -
Google Places/Points of Interest Rankings?
Does anyone have an idea on how Google ranks or determines the 'Points of Interests' that come up when searching about places/cities?
Algorithm Updates | | CarlLarson0 -
Is DMOZ listing important
I have heard a variety of thoughts on the importance of directories such as DMOZ. Any thoughts on this subject from the perspective of google search rankings?
Algorithm Updates | | casper4340 -
Working in the world of Google Farmer Update
So I know have seen how my websites have taken a nose dive from the google farmer update most likely with traffic significantly hit. Example site is callcatalog.com. What recommendations are there to deal with the new world order? How can we look at optimizing, changing, modifying our process to improve rankings and traffic?
Algorithm Updates | | seo_ploom0