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
-
How accurate are google keyword estimates for local search volume?
We've all used the Google Adwords Keywords Tool, and if you're like me you use it to analyze data for a particular region. Does anyone know how accurate this data is? For example, I'd like to know how often people in Savannah, Georgia search for the word "forklift". I figure that Google can give me two kinds of data when I ask for how many people in Savannah search for "forklift". They might actually give me rough data for how many people in the region actually searched for the term "forklift" over the last 12 months, then divide by 12 to give me a monthly average. Or they might use data on a much broader region and then adjust for Savannah's population size. In other words, they might say, in the US people searched for "forklift" and average of 1,000,000 times a month. The US has a population of 300,000,000. Savannah has a population of about 250,000. 250,000 / 300,000,000 is 0.00083. 1,000,000 times 0.00083 is 208. So, "forklift" is searched in Savannah an average of 208 times. 1. is obviously much more accurate. I suspect that 2. is the model that Google is actually using. Does anyone know with reasonable certainty which it is? Thanks,
Local Website Optimization | | aj613
Adam0 -
Business location in small town - How to target meta title?
So it's common practice to include the city/state in page titles and within the content. However let's say that a business is located in a small town, but serves customers in surrounding, larger towns. You might say that it's not worth mentioning the small town because there would be few searchers in that area. However, does Google take into account the distance a searcher is from the business location, in relation to the page title, as well as the Google my Business page? Obviously you can't go stuffing all of the surrounding towns into your homepage or main service pages. Is there any value in mentioning the small town, or is it fine to leave it out too? What has been your experience?
Local Website Optimization | | OliverNeely0 -
SEO Client not rankings in Google
Hello, I have a client that has continued to be problematic for my team and I. They have fair to middling rankings in Yahoo and Bing, but none in Google. I realize that they are three separate search engines each with their own criteria, but this client is the only one experiencing this problem. There is no significant duplicate content that can find, same with restrictions in the robots.txt file. These seems to be no reason why all my tools say that this client has no presence at all in google, especially when the client gains most of their traffic through Google. Can anyone assist me in finding out what is going wrong? Client website for reference: http://www.volvethosp.com/ Best, BeyondIndigo
Local Website Optimization | | BeyondIndigo0 -
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 -
What is the best way for a UK company to source SEO Support to boost SERPS in USA Google?
We are a niche web retailer with a world leading product and as such are probably the best option for USA customers (even though we are based in the UK) up to 18 months ago google agreed and placed us high for USA searches and we had good business as a result however since penguin (or around that time anyways) google increased our SERPS for more local markets (UK and EUROPE) and decreased our ranks for USA with a consequent reduction in our USA sales We want to improve rank again in USA (and Canada and Australia and Russia) but need specialist help What's the best way to source that? (short of someone saying they know exactly how to do that) ant recommendation most gratefully received Tom
Local Website Optimization | | tomnivore0 -
Client with business website as well as franchise site
I have a client who has created a Weebly web presence alongside his provided franchise website. What is my best strategy as he does not wish for the franchise site to out-perform his Weebly presence.
Local Website Optimization | | Sans_Terra0 -
Scaling Business Operation n SEO as an Entrepreneur
Hi! I'm a 1 man business operating in Singapore doing Delivery Service for Business. Right now my website is ranking at the 3rd page of google, www.vantagedelivery.com
Local Website Optimization | | Caleb-Seah
The keywords that i'm looking to rank are delivery service, delivery service singapore. Being alone in the business, i struggle in doing the SEO aspect of the website on a consistent basis. Therefore i'm looking for a scale-able way for me to do SEO in my free-time, perhaps 2 hours a day? Any recommendation especially with regards to the routine i should be looking at?
With regards blogpost, what are the recommended things to do especially when the crowd of the people who reads blogpost in my industry is close to none? Thanks!0 -
Has anyone had any success buying a local domain website, getting it on first page and then selling it to a local business? I have found some good domains that this might work for but I am wondering if anybody has tried this before.
I would like to buy a local domain like scottsdalepaintingcontractor.com and then seo it to first page before I sell it. Has anybody tried such strategy?
Local Website Optimization | | BWoods3