Google My Business
-
I have a question about Google my Business. Currently I have a business that's been verified. I would like to add another business with the same address. The businesses are different (name, website, phone number) but the primary address is the same. Is this something that can be done? Thanks for your help.
-
Hi Miriam,
Thanks for checking back in. Yes, the businesses are different and the phone number, name and websites are different. Thanks for your help.
-
Hey Dave,
I totally know where you are coming from, and what you are describing is something I was also suggesting to clients not very long ago. It seemed like a rational solution. But a few things made me change my own position on this:
-
Google has gotten MUCH better at separating businesses at a shared location than they used to be just a couple of years ago. They used to be really poor at doing this and merged listings were a common phenomenon. They are much less common now, and I attribute this to Google's growing sophistication.
-
Google has always been really clear about wanting the real world address, and while in the past, I might have felt I had to 'help' them with suite numbers because of their known merging fiasco, I don't feel this is necessary any longer, and it's always safer to abide by the letter to the guidelines, right?
-
Google has definitely become more sophisticated at reading real-world signage. Their team can look at a streetview-type image of any business, and if they see a discrepancy in what you've listed with what's on the building, they can act on that information.
So, that's my evolution of thinking on this over the past couple of years, in a nutshell. The only grey area I personally still have about this is when the businesses are similar. For example, a muffler shop and an oil change place might legitimately be two different businesses in the real world, but could possibly be mistaken for a single business owner trying to spam Google by making categories of a business appear to be separate businesses. So I'm not 100% confident as to where we and Google are at with that scenario these days.
-
-
Agreed it's not ideal but unfortunately from my experience you can't list two businesses with the same address meaning without a workaround one of them won't get a listing which is obviously a disadvantage.
Probably something Google should fix (perhaps an extra level of verification or some such thing) but until they do there's not much choice.
-
Hi There,
Just wanted to pop back by, as I wouldn't personally advise adding a suite number unless one actually exists. Google wants real physical addresses. So, the better course here... provided we are talking about 2 unique businesses that aren't related .... would just be to make sure the name, number and website are unique.
-
Good luck and hope it works out as well for you as it should.
-
Thanks for all the information. The comments were very helpful. The businesses are different (phone number, website) and I believe the address can include a suite number which will help make them different too.
Very helpful!
-
Very good point to add.
-
Hi There!
It's generally okay to run more than one business out of the same address unless the businesses are in the same or similar category. So, for example an air conditioner repair shop and heater repair shop at the same location might fall under suspicion. But an auto garage and an accountant at the same location should have no problems provided the complete name, phone and website are distinct.
-
I hit a similar issue with a client once. A completely legitimate second business running out of the same address as the first. We simply set the second one as "Unit B" and mentioned to the letter carrier that there would be mail delivered there. As long as you've been nice to them and given them a nice Christmas card they'll probably do you the favor of delivering the Suite B verification card.
Not the whitest of hat things to do technically probably but ethically they were 2 registered and visited business and it wasn't their fault they both were run out of the same location so I didn't personally have an issue with it.
-
Could you provide a little more information? Website URLs or business information would be helpful to give a more accurate response to this problem. Typically you really shouldn't have two separate businesses at the same address - that could cause merging issues with the pages. The most common solution is using a suite number, but it some cases that's not possible. This address wouldn't happen to be in a shared office suite (eg, regus suite), would it?
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
-
I have followed all the steps in google speed ranking on how to increase my website http://briefwatch.com/ speed but no good result
My website http://briefwatch.com/ has a very low-speed score on google page speed and I followed all the steps given to me still my website speed doesn't increase
Local Website Optimization | | Briefwatch0 -
Google for Jobs: how to deal with third-party sites that appear instead of your own?
We have shared our company's job postings on several third-party websites, including The Muse, as well as putting the job postings on our own website. Our site and The Muse have about the same schema markup except for these differences: The Muse...
Local Website Optimization | | Kevin_P
• Lists Experience Requirements
• Uses HTML in the description with tags and other markup (our website just has plain text)
• Has a Name in JobPosting
• URL is specific to the position (our website's URL just goes to the homepage)
• Has a logo URL for Organization When you type the exact job posting's title into Google, The Muse posting shows up in Google for Jobs--not our website's duplicate copy. The only way to see our website's job posting is to type in the exact job title plus "site:http://www.oursite.com". What is a good approach for getting our website's posting to be the priority in Google for Jobs? Do we need to remove postings from third-party sites? Structure them differently? Do organic factors affect which version of the job posting is shown, and if so, can I assume that our site will face challenges outranking a big third-party site?1 -
If we are a local based business, what is the best approach to tracking keywords? Shall we be micro tracking?
we are a local based business and we only have one physical property but we service a 15 mile radius (people within a 15 mile radius will use our services) when it comes to keyword tracking and monitoring should we just be looking at the 3 main local towns or should we go out to the villages around our area too? at what level shall we be micro tracking? do we go to such a micro level for tracking keywords for all the villages which creates a lot of keywords for the locations? what is the best approach?
Local Website Optimization | | Mutatio_Digital0 -
Multiple My Business pages affecting local SEO?
Hey Moz! We have a situation with a dentist firm with multiple doctors at the same address. They have two locations for their dental offices, and each of the dentists operate at both offices. The issue: Each doctor insists on having their own by business page for each location and i'm afraid this is hurting their local SEO. We've been tracking keywords by week and we've seen some big fluctuations in ratings and i'm looking into why this is happening. The office in location 1 has it's own Google My Business page and the three dentists have their own my business page set up at the exact same address. The office in location 2 has it's own Google My Business page as well and the three dentists have their own my business page there also. This leads the two addresses of the main offices having multiple My Business pages at the same address competing against eachother since they are all are registered with similar names and specialties. Could this be hurting our local SEO? Thanks! -Z
Local Website Optimization | | zacgarrison_700 -
What's with Google? All metrics in my favor, yet local competitors win.
In regards to local search with the most relevant keyword, I can't seem to get ahead of the competition. I've been going through a number of analytics reports, and in analyzing our trophy keyword (which is also the most relevant, to our service and site) our domain has consistently been better with a number of factors. There is not a moz report that I can find that doesn't present us as the winner. Of course I know MOZ analytics and google analytics are different, but I'm certain that we have them beat with both. When all metrics seem to be in our favor, why might other competitors continue to have better success? We should be dominating this niche industry. Instead, I see a company using blackhat seo, another with just a facebook page only, and several others that just don't manage their site or ever add unique, helpful content. What does it take to get ahead? I'm pretty certain I've been doing everything right, and doing everything better than our local competitors. I think google just has a very imperfect algorythm, and the answer is "a tremendous amount of patience" until they manage to get things right.
Local Website Optimization | | osaka730 -
Structured Data Schema for Local business
Hi Where should you add ‘local business’ schema, the 'Home Page', ‘About Us’ page, 'Contact Us' page etc etc ? I presume the page with the address such as 'contact us' page but if say the address is on every page say in a footer for example is it ok to add address schema to every page ? I know someone who did this and havn't got any rich snippets out of it so presume best to focus on one primary page such as 'contact' or 'about' type pages ? Also: If your business serves multiple areas can you add schema for the other areas too or is it only for your primary business address ?
Local Website Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence
For example if your business address is listed in say ‘Wandsworth’ but you visit & serve customers in ‘Clapham’, ‘Balham’ & other regions of South West London, anyway of adding local business address structured data to your site for these areas too (to help target local searches including these other regions) Many Thanks
Dan0 -
Notify Google of correction?
We discovered duplicate content issues because of errors in domain forwarding. The forwards were masked so Google crawl thought all duplicate content. Fixed now and any suggestion on how to notify Google? just wait it out?
Local Website Optimization | | FredRoven0 -
How to rank in Local Google Without physical address and phone number?
Can We Rank Well in Local Google without Physical address and Phone Number??? If Yes. How??
Local Website Optimization | | Dan_Brown10