Hey There!

Sorry to hear about this. First, I do want to be sure to mention that there has been a shakeup in the packs in the past week. Please see:

http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local-important/42891-lot-movement-3-pack-local-finder.html

and

http://searchengineland.com/google-filtering-business-local-search-results-258044

I'm looking up 'Sea Leveler Cape Canaveral' in Google right now, and do see a Knowledge Panel for your business, so that's good news, and see this GMB listing:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sea+Leveler+Sport+Fishing+Charters/@28.4086071,-80.6143363,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xb376f8aa9ed43c09!8m2!3d28.4086071!4d-80.6143363

So, I see no signs that your listing has actually be suspended. Please let me know, did you see your issue resolve? Are you able to see the above listing okay?

Okay, thanks for that helpful clarification. So, this SEO company is working in clear violation of Google's guidelines, which state:

_Use a precise, accurate address to describe your business location. _

So, as far as Google goes, please follow the guidelines provided in this great article by Joy Hawkins for combating spam: http://www.joyannehawkins.com/ultimate-guide-fighting-spam-google-maps/

Linkedin offers this: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/61664/reporting-fake-profiles?lang=en but you may need to dig deeper.

This resource may help connect you to the support for a variety of other platforms: http://www.reengageconsulting.com/be-where-your-customers-are-with-local-business-listings/

Now, all this being said, it seems like you might want to get legal advice in this matter. I'm not qualified to give that in any way, but it seems like a cease and desist-type letter to the SEO company might get them to do the work of removing all of this spam, rather than the burden being on your shoulders. Hope this helps, and sorry for the frustration of this situation.

Hello There!

Using a rank checking tool set to the zip code of your business, I see you ranking #1 in the local pack and #9 organically for "real estate photographer Denver". Doing the same search from my location in California, I see you ranking #2 in the local pack and #7 organically. In other words, you've already achieved really excellent visibility.

I would question the path of making your homepage more optimized towards Denver, because I'm assuming Denver is only 1/50th of your customer base, if you offer a 50-state service. Right now, with your optimization exactly as it is, Google is still highly favoring your Denver location in the Denver-based-and-modified results. I would feel some concern that overdoing the homepage with Denver would be subtracting from your visibility in other parts of the country. At the same time, if you created a Denver-only page for the website and pointed your GMB listing to it, your local rankings would almost certainly drop as the new landing page wouldn't have the same DA as your homepage.

Your About and Contact pages can act as landing pages, of sorts, for your Denver location, but I still wouldn't advise pointing your local business listings at them. Nor does that seem at all necessary given that you're ranking #1 and #2 locally for this core term.

Rather, if what you're really hoping to do is get more business from Denver clients, I'd leave your website as-is and consider some of the following efforts:

1. Continue to hammer down on reviews. You're already blowing away your local pack competition in this regard, but I'd keep working on this. And keep up the work on Google posts. This is for your local ranking maintenance, of course.

2. For your organic goals, I'd work on links. Explore whatever Denver-based links and linktations you can get. This tutorial might be helpful: https://moz.com/blog/linked-unstructured-citations.

3. I would also work on social outreach within the Denver community, which actually corresponds with point #2.

Hope you'll get some more feedback from the community!

Hey Again CalicoKitty

I started a discussion thread on the new filter here: https://moz.com/community/q/community-discussion-did-your-google-listing-suddenly-disappear

This issue is important enough to bring to the community's attention, I think, as so many businesses are being affected. You might want to keep an eye on that, and contribute anything else you notice. I'm hoping our community will pitch in with what they are seeing, too!

Hi Omer,

Adding modifiers of any kind to the business name is against Google's guidelines. Your client is actually right that having city names in the business name can increase local rankings, but it's considered spam to do so and businesses that are ranking via this tactic are at risk of red flags being raised at Google if they notice it, if a competitor reports the company, etc. So, while your customer is right that this tactic can increase rank, it isn't really worth it to spam Google.

Hi Susannah,

You're very welcome! Until the client can get a separate phone number for Location B, don't create the GMB listing or any other citations for it. Hopefully, you can share Google's guidelines with them and help them see the good sense in complying with Google's wishes on this. In addition to being guideline compliant, unique phone numbers greatly lessen the risk of accidental listing merges, so pretty much any multi-location business needs to make a basic investment in a unique number for each locale.

You're welcome, Omer!

Hi Gabe,

1. If they don't have separate phone numbers, then I personally would not advise building citations for them. Google wants the number you list for a location to connect as directly as possible to the specific location. Lacking this, I wouldn't build citations, but you might find varying opinions on this.

2. Yes, if you decide to build citations for each building, you are talking about building a complete, unique citation set for each locations. So 20 buildings would equal 20 citation sets.

3. In a correct scenario, properly created listings for multi-department businesses should not water anything down. However, your scenario may not qualify as 'correct', given lack of unique numbers.

4. Here's an example. This is USF: https://www.google.com/maps/place/University+of+San+Francisco/@37.7766466,-122.4528717,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x8085874a311220bb:0x6a56ca6f837ff84e!8m2!3d37.7766466!4d-122.450683

And here is a unique building on this campus (note separate phone number): https://www.google.com/maps/place/Phelan+Hall/@37.7762416,-122.4497874,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x68467e565121581b?sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjEjOWA7YDQAhVkilQKHbXTA0YQ_BIIeDAK

I haven't looked closely at how this university is doing things, but I was able to find that example in a couple of seconds. Hopefully, you can find others.

Adhering to the letter of Google's guidelines, any citation set you build should have a real world guideline-compliant name, direct phone number and accurate street address. Any variation from this can lead to problems. Hope this helps!

Hi Varun,

While you can't disable the suggest an edit feature, you can report incorrect edits to the Google My Business forum:

https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Google-My-Business/ct-p/GMB

Be sure you give the complete details of the listing, the history of the edit that was made, and anything else you can think of that would help. Cross your fingers that a Top Contributor will take a look at your post and help you. Hope this helps!

Hey There!

Are you saying you are considering changing a number phone number for a vanity number (letters instead of numbers?). I just want to be sure I'm understanding correctly. Thanks!

Hey RoxBox,

Thanks for the reply. I want to start by saying that I am only a fan of vanity phone numbers for a really limited number of scenarios: radio ads, TV ads and billboards. Beyond that, I am just not a fan. Here are some reasons:

1. You don't want to use a vanity number on your local business listings because some won't accept letters instead of numbers, and there's a serious question as to whether clicks-to-call might get hammered, too.

2. Unless your consumer base is all really young folks with perfect eyesight, vanity numbers make things unnecessarily difficult for consumers trying to see the tiny letters on a mobile phone's number pad, and even on a landline pad. I've had my phone disconnect while I've hunted around for the letter Q, for example. So, vanity numbers really aren't consumer-friendly.

So, if the business is determined to have a vanity number, I would advise them to use it only for specific advertising scenarios (like a radio ad). And if they want to connect that radio ad to UX on the website, go ahead and put it in an image in the website masthead. But keep it separate from the pure text-based NAP of the business, whether that features a toll free or local phone number. Never make a vanity number the only option for a local business. They just aren't well-liked, according to an informal poll I took of some Local SEO colleagues.

Hope this helps!