Google Local Listing Verification - Is there a way to skip this?
-
Hi,
We are running 2 types of service in our company.
1.) Dry Cleaning
2.) Laundry Services
The problem is we have 2 website but only 1 office address.
It is not recommended to put same address for the both websites
both doing laundry & dry cleaning services.Is there any tip on how we can get listed on Google place without using the same address for both website?
-
Thanks for the help. Much appreciated.
-
Hi Daniel,
That's a question to consider carefully. If you change the business name on an existent Google+ Local page, you will likely lose all reviews accrued, etc. Google would probably prefer that you close the old page and start a new one. Your team might want to hire a Local SEO for a strategy session on this so you're making smart moves. Here's a good post from NGS marketing that's a Who's Who of Local SEOs. You might find someone who is a good match for the project on this list:
http://www.ngsmarketing.com/who-is-who-in-local-seo/
I know just about everyone on that green linked list, and any of them would be worthy of consideration. What I know for certain is that it is really easy to take the wrong steps in a situation like this in Local, so expert advice would be advisable in a scenario in which you're disclosing all pertinent details to the expert. Hope this advice helps!
-
Appreciate your help!
-
It **is **complicated. So thanks for your help.
Your understanding is basically correct, though there are even more twists and turns.
At this point, does it make sense to try to switch the name from the online to the offline business in the listings and citations. Or would this muddy the waters even more?
-
Hi Daniel,
You write:
"The online business sells widgets and related services. Let's say it's called Acme Widget People. We have already built listings and citations for it."
If this is a virtual business (no face-to-face contact), then a Google+ Local listing and citations for its locale really should never have been built. Google wants face-to-face business only in their local index. So, if I'm understanding this correctly, something was built that should not have been.
I may be missing some of the nuances of this, but it sounds to me like a single business that sells widgets and services and has 2 physical locations. It sounds like multiple websites/multiple business names have complicated the issue. Without being able to review the case one-on-one with the business owner, my advice needs to be seen as general here.
If the business owner needs to maintain his virtual business separately from his brick-and-mortar locations then:
-
He should not be publishing an address or local phone number on the virtual business website.
-
The virtual business should not have a Google Places/Google+ Local listing and building citations for the NAP (name, address, phone number) is actually going to hurt rather than help him because:
-
What he should have Google Places listings and citation campaigns for is the 2 brick and mortar locations. But if Google is finding this other business (the virtual one) out there sharing the address or phone number, the ability to rank the physical businesses will be hampered severely.
Hope this makes sense, Daniel. You are right...the situation sounds complicated.
-
-
Hi Elvin,
Thanks for providing such complete answers. This may not be what you're hoping to hear, but my best advice is to ditch the second website. You're running a single business with a variety of services under one roof, despite the separate phone numbers. I would advise you to have
-
One website that fully describes all the offerings of your company and prominently displays your address and one local phone number.
-
A single Google+ Local listing for the business that adheres to the guidelines in every way.
Having read your answers, I'm 99% certain that any other approach will be problematic for the business and could lead to penalties.
Invest in good copywriting for your website so that you've got great content covering all of your services rather than investing time in attempting to build out the services as if they belong to two different companies. That is my best advice.
-
-
Super reply Miriam,
- Do you have 2 totally distinct business names for the business? In other words, is one business called Laundry To You and the other called Rosita's Dry Cleaning, or are the business names similar, like Rosita's Laundry Service and Rosita's Dry Cleaning?
They are the same company with 2 different website with related services.
- Are there 2 different physical entrances to the building? In other words, do dry cleaning clients go through door 1 and laundry clients go through door 2? Or, are they both entering through the same door?
They can enter by the same door.
- Have you always had 2 different local phone numbers for the 2 services or do they share a phone number?
They have 2 different numbers.
- Please thoroughly describe what the 2 services do as separate entities. How are the services different?
To be honest, both business laundry and dry cleaning are closely related but the websites are different and it would be great to get them both listed on Google listing.
This 2 websites has loads of information on laundry and dry cleaning but it is certainly unfair to get 2 listing in Google place for our competitors but we always believed that whoever can deliver the best service and also content should be listed on top
I appreciate your help on this Miriam
-
Thanks for the response. It't a bit complicated. There are two businesses with a common owner.
The online business sells widgets and related services. Let's say it's called Acme Widget People. We have already built listings and citations for it.
The bricks and mortar business (with two locations) also sells widgets and related services. It's called Superior Ideal. The phone number is also different. It has no listings or citations yet. One of the locations has the same address as the online business but a diffferent name and phone number.
So here's how the NAPs look:
Online Business:
Acme Widget People
123 Main Street
Suite 102
Anytown, Texas
75362
888-753-9876
Bricks and Mortar Locations
Location #1
Superior Ideal
57 Elm Street
Another Town, Texas
85378
660-987-8976
Location #2
Superior Ideal
123 Main Street
Suite 102
Anytown, Texas
75362
518-765-8754
-
Hi Daniel,
This is really a separate question, but quickly, are the brick-and-mortar store and the virtual business the same business, or 2 different businesses?
If the same business, you should have no problem.
If 2 different businesses, then you do have a problem. Only 1 business should be located and publicized as being at the same address.
-
Hi Elvin,
This question actually has some tricky nuances to it, due to a recent change in Google's Places Quality Guidelines. The two categories you have mentioned (dry cleaning and laundry services) are so closely related and are being run out of the same location, so a couple of weeks ago, I would securely recommended the following:
-
One website
-
One Google+ Local listing
But, things have become less certain in this area, due to the guideline update.
Previously, the language in the guidelines read:
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.
Now, the language reads:
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.
It is up to you and me and every other local business owner to interpret what Google means by this change. I believe that what Google is attempting to resolve here is a situation such as that of a hospital which is now allowed to have a separate listing for the ER with a different phone number than that of their Radiology Department. Does this apply to your business? I am less secure, because there have historically been problems with Google's handling of similar businesses located within the same building. For example, even when 2 doctors have had different suite addresses within the same building, Google has sometimes conflated their 2 listings.
In the past, the old guideline language seemed to refer pretty clearing to situations like an HVAC guy who might abuse the system by creating 1 listing for his heater repair and a second listing for his air conditioning repair. Google clearly didn't want him to do this, and frankly, my gut feeling is that Google still doesn't want him to do this. I think the new language is really geared toward things like hospitals and colleges.
So, as I said, this is a bit tricky. I have some further questions for you:
-
Do you have 2 totally distinct business names for the business? In other words, is one business called Laundry To You and the other called Rosita's Dry Cleaning, or are the business names similar, like Rosita's Laundry Service and Rosita's Dry Cleaning?
-
Are there 2 different physical entrances to the building? In other words, do dry cleaning clients go through door 1 and laundry clients go through door 2? Or, are they both entering through the same door?
-
Have you always had 2 different local phone numbers for the 2 services or do they share a phone number?
-
Please thoroughly describe what the 2 services do as separate entities. How are the services different?
Please, provide as much detail as you can and I will do my best to continue hashing this out with you. My concern here is that the shared address may have always been causing you major NAP consistency issues, but I need to know more, and as I've said, the new guidelines are open to anyone's interpretation, in terms of applicability.
-
-
Not sure of the answer, but let me add a question of my own -- which is a variation on this theme.
My client has two bricks and mortar stores in two different cities, with one website. It also has an online business with a completely different name and website.
I have been working only on the online business.
However, my mandate has just expanded to the bricks and mortar stores.
I have a Google+ listing, other listings, and a bunch of local citations for the online business at an address in the format:
Alpha Company, 123 Main Street, Suite 102, Anytown, TX, 12345
The issue is: one of bricks and mortar stores has the same address as the online business.
i now need to get listings and citations for the bricks and mortar stores.
What should I do?
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
-
Strategies to recover from a Google Penalty?
2 years ago we took over a client who had a hacked site and also had signed up with a black hat SEO team that set up 50 spammy directory links back to the site. Since then we have cleaned up the hacks, had the site reviewed by Google and readded to the Search Index, and disavowed all the directory links through GWT. Over the last 2 years, we've encouraged the client to create new content and have developed a small but engaged social following. The website is www.fishtalesoutfitting.com/. The site's domain authority is 30, but it struggles to rank higher than 20 for even uncompetitive long tail keywords. Other sites with much lower domain authorities outrank the site for our primary keywords. We are now overhauling the site design and content. We are considering creating an entirely new URL for the primary domain. We would then use 301 redirects from the old url to the new. We'd welcome insight into why the current site may still be getting penalized, as well as thoughts on our strategy or other recommendations to recover from the events of 2 years ago. Thank you.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mlwilmore0 -
Strange strategy from a competitor. Is this "Google Friendly"?
Hi all,We have a client from a very competitive industry (car insurance) that ranks first for almost every important and relevant keyword related to car insurance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | sixam
But they could always be doing a good job. A few days ago i found this: http://logo.force.com/ The competitor website is: http://www.logo.pt/ The competitor name is: Logo What I found strange is the fact that both websites are the same, except the fact that the first is in a sub-domain and have important links pointing to the original website (www.logo.pt) So my question is, is this a "google friendly" (and fair) technique? why this competitor has such good results? Thanks in advance!! I look forward to hearing from you guys0 -
How does Google decide what content is "similar" or "duplicate"?
Hello all, I have a massive duplicate content issue at the moment with a load of old employer detail pages on my site. We have 18,000 pages that look like this: http://www.eteach.com/Employer.aspx?EmpNo=26626 http://www.eteach.com/Employer.aspx?EmpNo=36986 and Google is classing all of these pages as similar content which may result in a bunch of these pages being de-indexed. Now although they all look rubbish, some of them are ranking on search engines, and looking at the traffic on a couple of these, it's clear that people who find these pages are wanting to find out more information on the school (because everyone seems to click on the local information tab on the page). So I don't want to just get rid of all these pages, I want to add content to them. But my question is... If I were to make up say 5 templates of generic content with different fields being replaced with the schools name, location, headteachers name so that they vary with other pages, will this be enough for Google to realise that they are not similar pages and will no longer class them as duplicate pages? e.g. [School name] is a busy and dynamic school led by [headteachers name] who achieve excellence every year from ofsted. Located in [location], [school name] offers a wide range of experiences both in the classroom and through extra-curricular activities, we encourage all of our pupils to “Aim Higher". We value all our teachers and support staff and work hard to keep [school name]'s reputation to the highest standards. Something like that... Anyone know if Google would slap me if I did that across 18,000 pages (with 4 other templates to choose from)?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Eteach_Marketing0 -
SERP dropping along with competitors - Google algorithm mix up?
I am hoping someone will have some insight as our recent ranking drop has been driving me crazy trying to figure out what happened. Our site is www.dgrlegal.com. We've been building links by creating quality content and getting others to link to it. We've seen our rankings rise to 3 for a number of keywords. Suddenly around March we saw a pretty drastic drop but only for certain keywords (maybe a Penguin hit?). For example, "new jersey process service" still has us ranked 3rd but "new jersey process server" sees us much lower around 19. I've noticed several competitors have dropped while one has risen so is this negative SEO? Probably not as our backlink profile doesn't seem suspicious but it has me very confused. We've received no warnings or notices from Google. The only thing I see is that our indexed pages went from 13 to 98 in January and have been now steadily increasing to 129, although I thought this would be a positive. Any suggestions or thoughts? I thought maybe things would shake out but it hasn't happened as of yet - we just keep dropping.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | amandadgr0 -
Is Google now punishing anchor text?
Hi All, I was just wondering if Google is starting to punish anchor text links? I've noticed that one of my clients domains has slightly reduced and they have slipped a few places in rankings for a key term since. I found this bizarre as the last few links I built were both relevant and strong but I did use an anchor text? Any feedback would be useful, I'm slightly confused here?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Benjamin3790 -
Help required as difficulty removing Google algorithmic penalty
I am not an SEO expert but I am trying to recover my company's ranking on Google. We are a UK based baby shower company. Been established since 2003. We have used SEO companies a few years ago. On September 28th 2012 our rankings in Google dropped significantly on certain landing pages, others like our baby shower gifts page has remained position 1 for UK Google searches . Bing and Yahoo were unaffected. Searches for baby shower and baby shower decorations has gone from position 1 or 2 (behind wikipedia ) to these 2 landing pages being unranked in Google. I have for the first time ever gone through our back links, tried to locate bad or low quality links, emailed where possible, and set up in webmaster tools a dissavow file ( currently not acted upon by Google). I have also amended the text in the baby shower department so it does not read as keyword stuffed. It has been two and a half months now and sales has dropped significantly and me and the staff are getting very concerned. Our site is www.showermybaby.co.uk . We have not received a manual penalty. Any suggestions or help in removing this Google penalty would be greatly appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | postagestamp0 -
Is it outside of Google's search quality guidelines to use rel=author on the homepage?
I have recently seen a few competitors using rel=author to markup their homepage. I don't want to follow suit if it is outside of Google's search quality guidelines. But I've seen very little on this topic, so any advice would be helpful. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | smilingbunny0