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
-
Google Penguin update
When Google Penguin update will run again. The last time was in October 2013 and I'm still really curious now. Or have they stopped this and this is now continuously just like the panda?
Algorithm Updates | | NECAnGeL0 -
What is this new feature on Google?
Hey everyone, I typed "Vancouver Colleges" into Google and this new feature came up which I have never seen. It displays popular schools. Could someone tell me what this is called? And how do I get our college on here? Thank you! 4hnT7bV.png
Algorithm Updates | | jhinchcliffe0 -
Changing Googles Sitelinks
Hi all, I know Google will only show sitelinks if the site is deemed authoritive and if it will help the user searching a keyword, but is there anyway to order or control which links appear in the sitelinks? I know you can demote a sitelink in Webmasters, but is this not shooting yourself in the foot? If I demote a link will Google replace it with the next link it thinks is worthwhile and be doing this eventually show the links you want to appear in your sitelinks? Thanx Gary
Algorithm Updates | | gazza7770 -
How to get bullet snippets SERPs
http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-snippets-for-list-pages.html I read this post and have been seeing a lot of results with this feature, but can't figure out exactly why some results get them and others dont. of the results I've seen, many have information in lists or tables (as the article suggests), but some simply have their information listed in separate divs. Does anyone have any further insight on this? The above article is the only one I can find on the subject.
Algorithm Updates | | Hakkasan0 -
How Google Determines Sitelinks
Does anyone have authoritative information on how Google determines which links to use as sitelinks? I thought I saw that Top Landing Pages was a metric Google used (in part).
Algorithm Updates | | joshfialkoff-778630 -
Ranking Riddle Who Gets the #1 Spot?
Out of these two competitors, who should receive the #1 spot on Google for Furniture Stores in Delaware and why or why not? [see attached images] fb-url-data.png cohen-url-data.png fb-anchor.png cohen-anchor.png fb-on-page.png cohen-on-page.png
Algorithm Updates | | Getz.pro0 -
Google changing case of URLs in SERPs?
Noticed some strange behavior over the last week or so regarding our SERPs and I haven't been able to find anything on the web about what might be happening. Over the past two weeks, I've been seeing our URLs slowly change from upper case to lower case in the SERPs. Our URLs are usually /Blue-Fuzzy-Widgets.htm but Google has slowly been switching them to /blue-fuzzy-widgets.htm. There has been no change in our actual rankings nor has it happened to anyone else in the space. We're quite dumbfounded as to why Google would choose to serve the lower case URL. To be clear, we do not build links to these lower case URLs, only the upper. Any ideas what might be happening here?
Algorithm Updates | | Natitude0 -
When did the New Google Algorithm Come into Force in the UK
On March 3rd, the hits on my UK site crashed to 40% of the previous number. I am guessing it may be down to the google algorithm change:- http://wisestartupblog.com/seo/google-algorithm-change-february-2011-losers-winners/5081 However, I am aware this happened on 25th Feb in the US. Do you know when it happened in the UK. Could it have suddenly started affecting me on March 3?
Algorithm Updates | | MattBB121