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I definitely would not put these in the footer.  Marie Haynes has a very good article on footer links that I normally reference: https://www.mariehaynes.com/footer-links-and-penalties/

Like Roman said, links in the footer don't offer much value anyway and put the site at risk for looking low-quality.

Do you have screenshots from before you started seeing the drop?  It's possible you have an influx of competitors now that Google has loosened the filter.  This happened on August 22 so it fits the timeline you're describing.

Here is my write-up about it: http://searchengineland.com/august-22-2017-hawk-google-local-algorithm-update-282269

I just wanted to clarify, what do you mean by main page? Are you talking about the homepage of the site?

Using anything other than the correct physical address will most likely cause driving directions on Google Maps to not function properly.  Also, I've seen cases where ranking was negatively impacted if Google is unclear about your location.  I'd strongly advise against doing this.

I agree with Miriam on point #2 because by 301'ing the domains you'll also get the benefit from all their links.

In the past I have asked Google My Business to mark the old listings as "moved" to the new one.  This will cause people searching for the old brand to see the new one.  In order to accomplish this, you'll need to make sure the Google My Business listings are not verified.  If the previous owners have them claimed in their account, you'll first need to get access to the listing so you can unverify them.

For more details, check out the article that just published this morning: https://moz.com/blog/duplicate-gmb-listings

Unfortunately like Miriam stated your business won't be eligible for a local listing anymore but since the office did exist there at some point, Google won't remove it and they will apply the "permanently closed" label to it. I'll check in with Google to see if there is anything else that can be done and let you know. This isn't the first time I've run into a scenario like this.

He should have a business license and should be ready to answer questions about his business to help prove he's an actual company.  The platform actually uses AdWords Express, not AdWords (unfortunately).

Oh, well in that case then I think you should be fine provided they don't overlap.  I copied a list of descriptions for the categories before MapMaker shut down so you can check this out if you are trying to figure out which one should go where.  You can see them here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_4yjYPVk0BFcaWHxUsmbObw8epJm-cXx-ZQstCE_byg/edit?usp=sharing

Each department would have its own listing on Google Maps if you set them up individually. There isn't a way to link them unless one is inside the other.

I would only suggest bothering with a G+ brand page for the entire company if you guys have a large customer base on G+ that would enable your posts to get +1s, shares, comments etc.

Hey Nathan,

Sorry this took so long. Our backlog is pretty long but Google got back to me yesterday to let me know they removed the listing all together

I haven't seen an article recently that addresses this but can say with great confidence that organic ranking has been one of the biggest determiners of who gets filtered or not filtered in the 3-pack ever since the Possum update.  In the dozens of cases I've analyzed, usually the listing that wins is the one that has the highest organic ranking.

Use this tool in an incognito tab: https://www.brightlocal.com/local-search-results-checker/

To get the most accurate results you need to search from a zip code, not a city name.

I've honestly always found it to be extremely accurate and is almost always the same thing the person I'm talking to is seeing.

Hey Ben,

There is a secret to doing this that won't mess up your NAP consistency or ranking.  What you need to do is move the "real" phone number to the secondary phone line inside Google My Business and then use the tracking number in the main phone number slot.

Whatever you do, don't use the tracking numbers on any other 3rd party citations.

Depending on the scenario, it could help because it would cause Google to read your address before anything else and if you're a local business, that could help gain relevance.  This is one of those things that should be super easy to test so I'll add it to my bucket list of items to test out.

Leave them as-is.

Nathan,

Weird - I have no idea where I would update my settings to allow PMs.  Maybe Miriam knows

There isn't anything wrong with creating multiple "city-pages" on your website targeting different city names.  Just be careful, because if there isn't enough unique content on them that is valuable to the user, they could be labeled as Doorway Pages, which are against Google's guidelines.  Phil Rozek has a great guide full of ideas for content for these pages.

What is not allowed is creating multiple listings for the same business in Google My Business. Google will remove the listings if they catch them and can possibly suspend the user's account as well.  Using addresses of relatives to create these listings would also be against Google's guidelines and would be defined as a fake listing.

I would only suggest creating multiple subpages for the location if they are targeting different keywords (products/services).  For example, if you have a location for an insurance agent then it might make sense to have 2 subpages, one targeting auto insurance and another targeting home insurance.  However, if the location just really offers one service, like a hotel, then it doesn't make sense.  I've seen chains do this and often Google only ever ranks the main location page and not the subpage because they are all targeting the exact same thing and the content is almost the same.

I would go with hotelsexample.com/state/city/ for the city pages that list all the hotels in that city.  For the listing for each hotel I'd go with hotelsexample.com/state/city/hotelname.

For the sightname it makes sense to put these under the city they're in: hotelsexample.com/state/city/sightname

Hey There,

Can you tell me what city or zip you're searching "orthodontist" from so I can replicate it?  Also, what's the website for your client?

It sounds like he's being filtered due to Possum but I would prefer to verify that by looking.

In case they ask, what was the address exactly?  Was it a storefront, an office space where you worked, or just a residential address you used to list as a service area business?

You shouldn't have to delete any of them.  If you contact Google My Business support they can merge them and should be able to transfer reviews as well.

Perfect. I updated my preferences.  I'll let you know when I hear back from Google on this.

A great option for service area businesses to rank well organically in other towns is to utilize a service like NearbyNow.  They create real content that isn't just you're typical keyword-stuffed service area pages and they rank really well if you utilize the tool properly.

Also now that ads are in the 3-pack everywhere on mobile, I'm suggesting that to clients as well.

You were correct in your assumption on virtual offices - they are not allowed: http://www.sterlingsky.ca/google-updates-gmb-guidelines-virtual-offices-not-allowed-sabs/

If it's just submitting new listings and not NAP cleanup you could hire Whitespark to submit them: https://whitespark.ca/citation-building-submission-service/#prices

Ben,

If your goal is to replace every single phone number online with the tracking number, that's fine.  In my experience it is almost impossible to keep the old phone number from re-populating since it's published in offline sources (like the phone book).

What I was recommending would be good if you wanted to isolate/track JUST the calls from GMB.

In order to provide advice, I'd need to know the website and the search term you're looking at.  Can you provide those?

Tom Waddington (one of the smartest people I know) pointed out, most of the spammy backlinks are pointing to a domain (reliant-plumbing.com) that is redirecting to your site.  Why don't you kill that domain (make it 404) and see if it fixes this?