NAP No mail delivered to physical location
-
Hello,
First question here on moz. I live in a small town, and some of my clients do as well. Some mail is delivered to physical locations, however most mail is delivered to PO Boxes. I have tried with some success to get the mail workers to flag Google and others post cards. Otherwise I am not able to verify ownership. Any ideas or help on how to verify businesses that don't get mail at their location would be great.
Dave
-
You're welcome, Dave. Good luck!
-
Miriam,
Thanks so much. I will try the troubleshooter.
Dave
-
Hi David,
While Ruben is correct that the use of P.O. Boxes is a violation of the Google Places Quality Guidelines, there is a chance that you can get help with this via the Google Troubleshooter located here:
https://support.google.com/places/
Click the contact button and go through the troubleshooter. You should see a blue 'Call Us' button appear in the form and if you can speak to a Google rep, they may be able to help you with the verification issue.
However, before you can do this, it's important to understand that any Google+ Local page you create must be based on the physical location of the business in question and not any associated P.O. box. So, for a client in this town, you'd need to create the listing, have postcard verification fail and then go through the troubleshooter in hopes of getting direct help from Google staff in verifying the validity of the business. This will be extra work on your part, and you should prepare you clients for this hangup by explaining Google's limitations in regards to small towns like yours where everyone picks up mail at the local post office. Be sure not to guarantee that you can get the listing verified for them, but tell them that you will make a best effort to make it happen.
Hope this helps!
-
Ruben,
Thanks for the reply. To clarify, these businesses have physical locations, they just don't receive mail at their location.
Any ideas in this scenario?
Thanks for your help,
Dave
-
Dave,
I would be careful about verifying businesses that do not have physical addresses or have clients at those physical addresses. Google is very clear about this being a violation of their guidelines. https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en
Granted, I'm not the google police, but it's something I would recommend you considering.
Best,
Ruben
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
-
Does Google Image Search consider meta data (EXIF) when looking for a location?
Does Google Image Search consider meta data (EXIF) when looking for a location? Is it essential to define the meta data in order to rank top with images?
Image & Video Optimization | | fduo0 -
Schema - Multiple locations
I'm adding schema tags for a client with multiple locations/branches of their bar. What's the best way to setup the Schema tags for the different addresses? Something like this: | id="footer-right" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/BarorPub"> |
Image & Video Optimization | | CompucastWeb
| ### itemprop="name">Bar Name |
| |
| itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress"> |
| itemprop="streetAddress">Street Name • <span < span="">itemprop="streetAddress">2 Street Name</span <> • <span < span="">itemprop="streetAddress">3 Street Name</span <> |
| itemprop="addressLocality">New Orleans |
| itemprop="addressRegion">LA |
| itemprop="postalCode">Zip Code |
| |
| Tel:itemprop="telephone">555-555-555 |
| | | |0 -
Local Citation NAP: Comma difference
Hello, Is there a difference between: 111 Streetname #L, City, CA, 84111 and then on facebook it's 111 Streetname #L City, CA 84111 on two different lines? Note on the first one, there is a comma after #L and on the two line facebook page citation, there's no comma after #L. Should I add a comma on facebook after the #L? Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW1 -
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
Image & Video Optimization | | nimbleo0 -
Google + local Multiple Locations
My client has three offices and I have created three separate Google + local listings for them - I have listed the specific locations page as the website address for each - Google specifies to add the coding to the homepage to link Google + however what do we do with the three different codes - does each one go on the home page or at the bottom of the specific landing page for that particular office?
Image & Video Optimization | | AllieMc0 -
Multiple Google Places Accounts - Same Physical Location
Hi there, One of my clients is a local law firm. I have created, populated and verified a Places page for them, but now I have discovered that they had previously created one for each of their attorneys at that location. According to Google's quality guidelines, this is totally fine. However, I am wondering if I should try to verify each of these accounts within Places to enhance their listing coverage? One thing I've already tried is modifying some of the listing details via Map Maker, but it would be nice to just make edits en masse, I think. Any suggestions?
Image & Video Optimization | | G2W0 -
Would listing an address on a location page for a franchise count as a citation?
If a small franchise with 15 locations implemented location pages for each location including address and phone then made them crawlable by the search engines and also accessible through a store locator, would this be counted as a citation for the location?
Image & Video Optimization | | JoshuaRich60