Hi Mr. Partyman,

In my opinion, because you are already established with your first business at the street address, the best thing to do would be to get a Suite A, just for the second business.

As Sanket has pointed out, it's critical that each business has its own phone number, business name and Google categories, as well as its own address, so be sure you are making these totally distinct.

Hope this helps!

Hi Sam!

It might be helpful to start with a little clarification here - in Local SEO, the term 'testimonials' tends to indicate direct-to-business owner content while the term 'reviews' typically indicates content that exists on a third party platform. In researching this topic, it would likely be better to search for 'reviews' rather than 'testimonials' as you are talking about third party reviews.

Mike Blumenthal wrote a great little post about this earlier this year:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/04/24/using-google-reviews-on-your-website/

Hope it helps!

Hi Anton, Is your business local or virtual? If local, then yes, city landing pages are extremely common and typically contain the city name in the URL of the landing page. However, it is key with these types of pages to be sure that you are creating unique, high quality content that will be of value to the user. Do not simply duplicate content and change out city keywords across multiple pages. That would be spammy. City landing pages work well for service radius businesses like plumbers, landscapers and general contractors, because the staff travel to clients in a number of cities. They are not as good of a fit for brick-and-mortar businesses like dentists, restaurants or retail shops, because in such cases, all clients come from their locations to the locale of a business. If a brick and mortar business wants to write about cities other than its city of location, it has to discover a valid reason for doing so. For example, a doctor located in City A might have hospital privileges in City B and give seminars in City C, giving a good reason for him to publish content about his involvement in these other cities. But, to simply create pages for cities in which he has no involvement, just because he hopes patients living in those cities might travel to him, doesn't really make sense So, what you do with your city landing pages is a case-by-case situation. One rule covers all scenarios - always build unique, quality content on the pages with the goal of helping users.

Hmm .. yes, I'm able to replicate that following your steps in Maps, but when you actually click through to the reviews, these bolds are gone. Honestly, I have no idea what they are doing there in the review snippets (as in your screenshot). They don't have anything to do with the search term. Looking at a nearby laundromat in Buffalo, I don't see the same behavior:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bryant+Street+Laundry/@42.8962389,-78.854702,11z/data=!4m5!1m2!2m1!1slaundromat+in+buffalo,+ny!3m1!1s0x89d312fc0bfb7309:0x3112b5c7362ad14

So - sorry, but I'm just not sure what those bolds represent. If anyone else has come across this, please chime in!

Hi Blair,

I am a bit surprised, too, by the advice you were given. I wonder if the rep could possibly have been thinking of this entry under the heading of 'ineligible business models' on the Google Places Quality Guidelines:

"Rental or for-sale properties, such as vacation homes or vacant apartments, are not eligible to be listed on Google Maps and should not be verified. Instead, verify the listing for your sales or leasing office or offices. If you have a property with an on-site office, you may verify that office location"

It says right there in the guidelines that if you have a property with an onsite office, you can verify it, and that appears to be what you are describing, even if it will be closing in three years. I guess maybe it's a grey area and you probably shouldn't go against what Google has told you.

If, despite what they said, you decide to go ahead with the plan, it's a bit hard to advise you. Right now, if a business needs to be closed, there are specific options, some of which are described well in the Google And Your Business Forum thread:

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/mark$20as$20closed/business/ybLoj6VAtMk/EwGnYbVT9aoJ

But, what the options will be 3 years from now, who can say? So, you'd probably need to look into this again when the time comes.

You would also need to try to shut down any citations you may have built, or they may cause a new Google+ Local page to be automated. Hope this helps!

Hi Blair,

Funny, I recalled this question, too, but didn't realize it was yours

I wish we could get an 'official word' from Google on this, because it's something the guidelines hint around but don't speak to directly. Have you ever posted this question in the Google And Your Business Forum, just to see if you get any feedback from the TCs there? Maybe even from a staffer? What's really important, I think, is the distinction between what Google's guidelines state about rental properties, etc., and the fact that a main office is being located on the property for several years. I mean, if it were a watch repair store that opened for several years and then closed, no one would fault them for having a G+ Local page, right? So, I think there is grey area here. You've been told by a Google rep not to do this, but I am truly curious as to the reasoning behind that individual's advice, and whether they could have been misinterpreting the guidelines.

Blair, as this is a business model you deal with constantly, I'd suggest trying again to get feedback from a Google staffer on this, maybe via their forum. If that doesn't work, you might try contacting a TC, like Linda Buquet or Mike Blumenthal to see if they would consider writing about your topic ... because there just isn't a clear guideline for this, in my opinion, given the exact details of the business model.

Hey There,

If memory serves, Google switched to using Most Helpful as the default setting some years ago when they partnered with Zagat. Prior to that, it had been ordered in terms of recency. I am not positive about this, but I believe 'Most Helpful' is determined via an algo that may include a combination of the authority of the reviewer + recency + review language and other factors. In your case, there is some reason that the algo thinks it is helpful for people to see those negative reviews - and I can totally see how much of a pain this is, given that the rest of your reviews are largely positive and you even have more recent, positive reviews.

I'd definitely take a look at the review profiles of the 2 people who left the negative reviews. If they've left lots of other reviews, their authority could be playing a role in this. If the reviews are, indeed, libelous, this post may help you in reporting:

http://www.localsearchforum.com/local-reviews/3931-how-remove-slanderous-google-reviews.html

Sorry not to have more definite information about this, but it's one of those algo-related things that likely puzzles many business owners and about which Google is not very forthcoming.