Potential sexaual harrassement issues in adding home address to website

[catherine-279388]

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?

[catherine-279388]

Thanks

[MiriamEllis]

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!

[catherine-279388]

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!

[MiriamEllis]

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:

http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2012/08/13/can-you-rank-well-in-local-google-without-revealing-your-street-address-anywhere/

http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2013/04/22/private-local-citations-where-can-you-list-your-business-but-hide-your-address/

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:

1. Discover all references and edit them yourself.

2. 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.

[WestAdvertising]

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.

[Matthew_Edgar]

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

[EGOL]

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.

[crackingmedia]

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