Is this a NAP inconsistency or is it fine?
-
All my citations are built with this zip code: 34655, but Bing Places wants me to add the +4 to it. 34655-4700. Will this cause a problem for inconsistency? I can override it and just use "34655," but I'm not sure if Bing would considered that some sort of error and penalize my listing for it.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Ruben
-
Thank you for the screen shots, Ruben. At any rate, none of these things should affect NAP consistency, so fortunately, not something to be worried about.
-
Hi Ruben,
At this point, even though they encourage you still have an option to override their suggestions and go with want you prefer? If that's correct you should be good to go. Unless they make it a requirement. But thanks for filling us in!
-
The last screenshot picture, actually worked. Something else, I just noticed, when Bing wants you add the +4, they also want you to change to abbreviations. At least, they did for this one I just made in the screenshot above. Now, that could definitely be a problem.
- Ruben
-
Let me clarify 'requiring." I created a fake listing with a screenshot, so you can see exactly what pops up with Bing if you don't add the +4. As you can see, you don't have to do it, you can override it, but the Bing Places chat people encourage you not to for whatever reason. And, the prompt encourages you to add the +4, too.
[](<a href=)" target="_blank">a> [IMG]]([IMG]http://i.imgur.com/3yufOxE.jpg[/IMG]) [URL]]([URL=http://imgur.com/3yufOxE][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/3yufOxE.jpg[/IMG][/URL]) 3yufOxE
-
Hi Ruben,
Good discussion going on here! I'm totally fascinated that Bing wants you to add a Zip+4 code. This is the first time I've heard of this in the local sphere. Zip+4 was launched by the USPS in 1983 as a way to help mail carriers identify a certain segment within a neighborhood. They are generally not required for mail delivery anymore, except in the case of post office boxes, which are, of course, not allowable addresses in a local search campaign. Very curious as to why Bing would require this.
At any rate, presumably Google is aware of Zip+4 codes, so I wouldn't actually consider them a candidate for true NAP inconsistency. If some of your listings featured a suite number, and others didn't, then that would be a problem, but I don't see Google having any confusion between a 5 digit zip and a Zip+4. I'm sure they understand this system, so I wouldn't be concerned about it if Bing insists. If you can leave it off and still get your Bing Places listing published, it's fine to do so, too.
Glad you brought this up. Like I've said, it's the first time I've heard of any local platform requiring a +4 code.
-
Great Question!
-
True Google switched to # for Ste. I think fairly recently. I think Yelp still uses Ste.
-
Thanks for the tips, you two! I appreciate it!
- Ruben
-
Ste vs suite is interesting. I talked about it with Miriam Ellis on this thread. In my neck of the wood searches, ste, suite, etc has all been replaced with #.
-
Awesome William, its great to have a Googler input in these discussions
-
The Googler said it didn't matter as long as it was consistent, but I think Vadim has some good points below.
-
Hi Ruben,
With citations, you always start with matching the address with your local post office, like USPS uses. This is important for things such as the difference between using Ste or Suite for names, St vs Street, etc. Google tends to honor the decisions of your local post office.
Pertaining to the zip code, 5 digit zip code is still the king for consistency. Main reason being is that most places still allow only 5 digits for zip code vs 9 digits. One camp may say well 5 + 4 is still consistent but gives extra location info, but I haven't seen any local benefit for "+4" other than the fact that it helps with identification for the local post office. But in terms of local SEO NAP consistency trumps in my opinion, and I totally agree with William on both accounts.
If you can opt out of leaving +4 I would do so. When it comes to adding your zip code on Google it gives you an example of 5 digits, even though it gives you a link to the USPS site which will give you 9 digits. And I would match Googles NAP. You should not be penalized for this on Bing end, if you choose to leave this out. Can you be penalized if you leave the +4 in? Maybe (due to inconsistency) but most likely not.
Hope this helps!
-
Did the googler happen to mention what's better between blvd and boulevard? I was told by some people on here, that it's best to write everything out just to be absolutely clear, but I'm not sure if there's any real evidence of a difference there.
That is a really good point about "Bing or Google?" I was looking for a "cake and eat it, too" scenario, but, you're definitely right about, if I have to choose, I'll choose Google.
- Ruben
-
Consistency is key. I would leave the 4+ off. From my experience and from talking with Google employees, the more identical the better for the actual NAP. A Googler who works in that area told me even the difference between "blvd" and "boulevard" can possibly have an impact.
And when it comes down to, "Who do I make happy, Bing or Google?" The answer is almost always Google.
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
-
NAP-safe way to display second address (P.O. box) on website?
I understand that only listing one address on a company website helps maintain NAP consistency, but is there a way to safely have a second address listed? A client of ours recently asked us if we could put their P.O. box address up on their website, so that THEIR clients would be able to conveniently look it up when mailing in documents, paperwork, checks, etc. They presently have their physical office address listed on their site, as well as in local listings. One idea we had would be to have the P.O. box address listed only on an image, so the crawler won't see the address, but there are potential accessibility issues with that solution. Would any specific kinds of markup or meta tags prevent the P.O. box from getting picked up and causing NAP confusion in local listings? Or am I simply overthinking this one? Thanks!
Local Listings | | BrianAlpert780 -
META Descriptions and NAPs
Does the meta description/snippet need to match the NAP for that office? If it doesn't, will it hurt local results/cause inconsistencies? The reason I am asking is that we are using one line for one of our offices to answer texts. But, our other offices have their own distinct numbers. So, if we want people to text us and advertise it through the meta description/snippet, can we just use that one number for all the offices? Or, do we need to purchase additional lines? Thanks, Ruben
Local Listings | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
NAP question and Google local.
Hello, My client has successfully grown one of their event venues locally (lets call it venue A) and on the back of that bought two more venues (B & C). Then created an umbrella company to manage all three. He now wants to market the umbrella company and so redirected the original successful venue domain (A) to the new umbrella company domain. The umbrella company is located at the same address as the original venue A. So it shares the same address, phone number, website as venue A but a different name. All this done before me. He has a Google local page for the original venue - venue A- and changed the domain on it to the new one. He also has Google local pages for the other two venue locations. But doesn't have a Google local page for the umbrella company. Now he finds rankings are down. Looking around I can see that his citations are all based on the original successful venue name A - but he has changed the website URL on many of the citations to the new domain.So a bit of a mess as we have a mixture of addresses, same phone number for all 4 , different business names for all 4, same website for all 4. If all the venues plus the umbrella company are in the same city, but have different names and addresses but the same phone number (for bookings) and web address, are they allowed a Google local page each? I suggest just having a Google local page for the umbrella company and remove the others as they are not actually separate businesses although they do have different addresses. But unsure if this is correct or necessary. Not sure how to progress with this one and any help appreciated?
Local Listings | | AL123al0 -
Individual practitioner NAP - unique "N", repeated "AP" Help!
We have a business where we have a number of doctor's offices, and at each office there are a few individual doctors. Customers often search for either the overarching brand or the specific doctors. Our hope is to optimize our listings so that we can rank in local SEO for both the brand name and doctor names. We have set up our local listings in Google My Business for all of the offices (common brand name, unique address, unique phone, unique landing page), but would like to explore adding individual doctor names in the listings too. The challenge is that each doctor within an office shares the address and phone number. They do have unique names (obviously) and landing pages, although the doctor landing pages don't have any specific contact information on them. My understanding is that we should have unique phone numbers for each listing. Unfortunately, this is a management and IT maintenance challenge. My question is - if we didn't use a unique phone number and instead used both the same address and phone number across multiple listings (office and doctors practicing there), are we violating Google's guidelines / damaging our overall rankings for all the listings? Does anyone have a sense of how bad this might be, so we can understand the risk/benefit? And secondly, would we make things worse by adding the non-unique address/phone to the individual doctor pages? Would this just reinforce inconsistent NAP, right on our site? Thanks!
Local Listings | | OneMedical0 -
NAP Questions
Hello Moz Community, I recently found out that one of my client's actual business name on paper has spacing and does not have that many capitalized words (ex. BlahBlahCity is the current NAP, however on paper it's actually Blahblah City). After readying the guidelines for representing your business on Google I started to worry that this may be holding us back from ranking in the local 3 pack. Here's the blurb from the guideline: Fully capitalized words (with the exception of acronyms) or unnecessary spaces. Not acceptable: "SUBWAY" Acceptable: "Subway", "KFC", "IHOP", "JCPenney" Is this a big issue or can I leave it as is? Another issue that I believe is holding us back was the google my business name he has for his multiple locations. His 2 locations have the city next to the business name. example: BlahBlahCity City#1 BlahBlahCity City#2 I know here I do need to remove the city from the business name, however when it comes to citations can google tell that it is 2 different locations and not think it's duplicate?
Local Listings | | keywordwizzard0 -
Call tracking number inconsistency
A client implemented dynamic number insertion using PHP to display a different number, based on the traffic source (organic, paid, direct and so on). This effects every displayed phone number on the website which leads to inconsistencies across the web, Gmybusiness and listings. My best best would be to use JavaScript for the number insertion instead, add a <noscript>using the "real" number and add JSON code with the correct NAP details.</p> <p>Is this correct or is there another way, a better way?</p> <p>Thanks in advance!</p></noscript>
Local Listings | | SEO-Bas0 -
Is there any harm to display NAP more than once on a location page ?
Hi All, I currently have location specific pages and my branch information(NAP) is currently displayed at the bottom in the page content. I was thinking off displaying the NAP again higher up the page so it's very visible for the user possibly under a h tag heading as well. Do you think it would be spammy or harm my seo efforts it my NAP was displayed twice on a page ?. Once in the content which currently it's not visible unless the user clicks on the read more link in the content on the bottom of the page , and again further up the page where I have some white space which I can utilize Any thoughts greatly appreciated. thanks Peter
Local Listings | | PeteC120 -
Question about onsite NAP as it relates to Local Search
Hi Gang, State requirements mandate that our law practice (Keller & Keller) properly display their distinct business entities on all advertising materials, including our website. Specifically, our offices are set up in a way that makes Indiana's law office an LLP, New Mexico's an LLC, and Michigan's a PLLC. All 3 offices/states are represented on a single domain, but I want to be careful about mixing the different registration titles (LLP, LLC, PLLC) throughout our site when we commonly refer to ourselves simply as Keller & Keller throughout the main pages and in our content. I worry it may negatively affect our local listings? (One idea is to place a simple 'disclaimer' in the footer throughout our site that identifies the business entities, however, I'm still concerned this too might affect/confuse our local listings?) All thoughts, advice, and theories are welcome! Thanks, everyone! (And to my fellow Yanks, enjoy a safe Memorial Day weekend!) W-
Local Listings | | Wayne760