Google My Business - two businesses, same location
-
I have client that has developed a new brand targeting a specific segment of their wider market - the more price sensitive customer. They have launched a website for this brand, which specialises in promoting special offers.
Both operations have the same physical address and the new brand - that targets this niche, I believe has been set up as a service-area business on Google My Business. I think they should change this as they do publish their address on their website and do on occasion welcome customers on their premises.
My question - at last! - is that can both businesses exist on Google Maps - with the same business address and is this the right way to proceed if I want to target directory listings for the new brand.
Any thoughts welcomed!
thanks.
-
So happy it helped, Nathan!
-
Thank you for your comprehensive response - you understood the situation perfectly and I can now advise the client with confidence.
-
Hi Nathan,
If I'm understanding this right, your scenario is like a General Appliance Repair company that repairs all appliances, but has now separately branded just Washing Machine Repair as its own business. Both brands are actually just one company, operating from the same address. Is that right?
If it us, unfortunately, no, the business should not be trying to run two Google My Business listings. The General Appliance Repair company is forbidden by Google's guidelines from creating listings for each service it offers (as in 1 for washing machine repair, 1 for stove repair, 1 for dryer repair, 1 for water heater repair) regardless of the number of websites/brands it creates for these service categories. The guidelines read:
Do not create more than one page for each location of your business, either in a single account or multiple accounts.
Likely outcomes should this business try to run 2 GMB listings as though it were 2 separate companies could include:
-
Competitors or Local SEOs reporting the practice to Google or Google noticing it on their own
-
Google taking down 1 of the 2 listings, and possible penalties
-
Even if Google does not catch this now or even for years, Possum may simply cause the second listing to be hidden due to shared location/categories
So, the outlook isn't great for this scenario (please let me know if I've misunderstood details of the scenario).
This brings up the question - how can a business branch out in a Google guideline-compliant way? With these 4 things:
-
Don't build a separate brand of the same company - build a legally distinct second company, registered with government agencies. In other words: General Appliance Repair is one legally registered business and Washing Machines R Us is a second legally registered business.
-
Operate at a separate location
-
Have a separate phone number for each business
-
Have a separate website for each business, with no duplicate content and avoid cross-linking/cross-promotion
This approach is risk-free and completely guideline-compliant.
Hope this helps.
-
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
-
Google My Business Multiple Listing
Can a specialist doctor who operates out of several locations have multiple GMB listings? She operates under her company brand name if that makes a difference. Thank you community!
Local Listings | | Crystal.w0 -
Local Business Audit Help.....
Hello Every one, I recently got a big project for cleaning up some old listings (around 120 locations), witch means to claim and delete them, as you guys know most of the directory's don't give the option to delete the listing after you claim that. I am trying to figure out the approach for something like that.......considering time consuming and efficiency! any help will be appreciated!! Cheers
Local Listings | | steve2150 -
Should I change my local listing Service type from Brick and Mortar to Service Area in Google? And will it affect my ranking in a negative manner?
Currently my company Big Boy Bail Bonds, Inc is ranking very well for the city it is located and, currently service type is brick and mortar. But my Company does not only service people at our location but we service the entire county of Los Angeles. And I wanted to know if you would advise me on weather I should change the service type from brick and morter to service area. and if doing that would effect me in a negative manner when it came to my ranking? Plz advice Thank you in advance.
Local Listings | | LittleDog1 -
Not all business locations showing for a brand search
I've got a client with multiple business locations however when I type the company name into Google it's only displaying 2/3 of the branches in the local pack for that SERP. The client's picked up on this and would like the third location to appear in the local pack when people search for their company name. I have a suspicion that it's because the third location (the one that isn't displaying) has an address that's exactly the same as several other businesses that are located in offices directly above or to the side of them. My (very flakey) theory is that Google is perhaps uncertain about the exact location of this business given that there are several others with the same address but different business names, so the NAP consistency is being diluted and Google is simply leaving them out of the local pack due to the uncertainty over which business is in fact located at 2 West Street. So my question is, has anyone else had any issues of not all business locations showing in the local pack for a brand name query and if so how did you solve it?
Local Listings | | PeteW0 -
Company with one site, name, but locations in different states
Our business has a location in Milwaukee, WI and Chicago, IL but one URL and want to keep the name the same because obviously it is a single company. I am trying to find the best way to: A. Optimize the NAP for consistency
Local Listings | | MERGE-Chicago
B. Figure out how to merge google local with the G+ for each location separately
C. What to do with the publisher tag Appreciate the help!0 -
Google Places Question
Hello All, I have an Ecommerce website with a number of different depots which customers can pick products up from. I have created a Google Places listing for each of my depots. My website has a unique page for each of my Locations. Should I have a link from the individual website location pages to the corresponding Google Places Page ?.. Currently I only have a link from the Google Places page back to the website Location Page ? Should the images I have in my google Places listings contain the relevant Location name in the image file names ? Is there any useful pointers for SEO tuning for google places or articles anyone could recommend ?.. thanks Sarah
Local Listings | | SarahCollins0 -
Phone number Schema that Google WMT blog talked about this week throwing HTML Validation error
My code looks like this: 888.723.4617 The HTML validation errors are these: Attribute contacttype not allowed on element span at this point.
Local Listings | | RoxBrock
Attribute areaserved not allowed on element span at this point.
Attribute contactoption not allowed on element span at this point.
Attribute availablelanguage not allowed on element span at this point. Have I misread how to implement this schema or is html validation not up to speed and I should ignore for now? Link to blog Post...http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/04/surfacing-your-businesss-contact-and.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FamDG+%28Official+Google+Webmaster+Central+Blog%29 Thanks!1 -
Google Plus Business (How to replicate categories from Places)- Advanced
I'm very familiar with local promotion. However, I work in some fairly competitive local markets and in most cases only a few dominant keywords are necessary for the client to perform well. With new clients who aren't grandfathered into the old places interface, I cannot setup custom categories. This is known to everyone, but what I would REALLY appreciate is if someone could explain how I can at least to some degree replicate that targeting? To put it in perspective, for the standard categories (through Google Plus Business) my client rank very well; thus you can assume the client's local strength is solid; but when it comes to the few specific terms I need, I can't see to replicate the effect. Please help... anyone! 🙂
Local Listings | | mgordon0