Hi Jeremy!

Would it not be organization/event Schema that would apply to your situation?

https://schema.org/Organization

That would be my best guess on this.

Hi Gavo,

Sorry for my delayed reply. Had to take a few sick days off.

So, there are a few rather complex different aspects here. I'll try to hit everything:

1. If they are two legally distinct companies, then, yes, they can both have a GMB page. Be sure they've each got their own phone number and website.

2. You should not add fictitious suite numbers to businesses. If you get a legal suite number from the post office, that's okay, but Google's guidelines wants you to represent your business exactly as it appears in the real world. Anything else is a violation of the guidelines.

3. Now we start getting complicated. The truth is that Google doesn't even recognize suite numbers for most businesses, as recently highlighted by Joy Hawkins in her guest post here at Moz: https://moz.com/blog/7-citation-building-myths-plaguing-local-seo. So, there's that. Basically, if you have suite inconsistencies across your citations, it's not believed to be a big deal SEO-wise, though it can be very confusing for customers trying to find you (making it a big deal in a different way) All this being said, please refer back to point #2 - Google doesn't want fictitious location info in the address.

4. And, finally, the fact that the two businesses share an address and categories means that one or the other of them may be filtered out by Possum in the local packs/finders. So, ranking issues may be a pain in the neck here. Hat tip again to Joy here: read point number 2 in her SEL article about Possum: http://searchengineland.com/everything-need-know-googles-possum-algorithm-update-258900 When last I looked, having separate suite numbers did not enable businesses in the same building/same category scenario to escape Possum. So, it will be important to explain to the business owner that their results may play hide-and-seek due to this issue.

So, there you go: a real crash course in the complexities of the scenario you've described. Hope this helps illuminate some of the details.

Hi Gavo,

Quick questions: Do these 2 businesses share the same Google My Business categories and are these legally two unique businesses?

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!

Hi John,

What you are referring to I would roughly term as a 'place label' though your industry doesn't have dedicated icons, as do restaurants or medical centers. Here is Google's somewhat old page on these:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/6056435?hl=en&ref_topic=4854129

They state:

_The place labels shown on Google Maps are determined algorithmically based on a large number of factors. One factor these algorithms consider is the accuracy of the business information and the richness of the content associated with the business. _

What you're experiencing is not uncommon, and your best hope is in excelling at as many of the factors as possible in the many that Google may take into consideration. How strong are your citations, how clean, are there duplicates, etc. Hope this points you in the right direction.

Hi Varun,

Suggest An Edit is not a mistake on Google's part, as you mention in your blog post, but rather, a feature. Here are some links for further reading on this:

https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Basics-for-Business-Owners/Incorrect-edits-applied-by-Google/m-p/568892/highlight/true#M7992

https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Basics-for-Business-Owners/Can-you-remove-the-quot-Suggest-an-edit-quot-from-a-google/m-p/568400/highlight/true#M7930

Hope these help!

Hi Conalt,

Nearly all of Google's documentation regarding POIs is for developers making maps and, to be honest, I feel it has been 5 or so years since I've last even seen a good discussion regarding the term 'points of interest'. There should be more discussion of this, as clearly, this is still highly featured in searches like the one you cited. You might look here for more information: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topicsearchin/maps/points$20of$20interest

My guess is that what Google chooses to show in these types of searches is algorithmic, but what that algo may be, I have no resources to point out. So sorry, and if you're setting yourself the task of learning about this, it would be wonderful if you'd share what you learn with our community.

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!

Hey Gabe,

Because Google continues to dominate Local, we normally take our queues from them. Google's guidelines allow a unique listing for major departments of campus-style entities like colleges and medical centers. Google states:

• Individual practitioners and departments within businesses, universities, hospitals, and government buildings may have separate pages. See specific guidelines about individual practitioners and departments for more information.

Publicly-facing departments that operate as distinct entities should have their own page. The exact name of each department must be different from that of the main business and that of other departments. Typically such departments have a separate customer entrance and should each have distinct categories. Their hours may sometimes differ from those of the main business.

• Acceptable (as distinct listings):
  • "Walmart Vision Center"
  • "Sears Auto Center"
  • "Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Dermatology"
• Not acceptable (as distinct listings):
  • The Apple products section of Best Buy
  • The hot food bar inside Whole Foods Market

For each department, the category that is the most representative of that department must be different from that of the main business and that of other departments.

• The main business "Wells Fargo" has the category "Bank" whereas the department "Wells Fargo Advisors" has the category "Financial Consultant"
• The main business "South Bay Toyota" has the category "Toyota Dealer" whereas the "South Bay Toyota Service & Parts" has the category "Auto Repair Shop" (plus the category "Auto Parts Store")
• The main business "GetGo" has the category "Convenience Store" (plus the category "Sandwich Shop") whereas the department "GetGo Fuel" has the category "Gas Station", and the department "WetGo" has the category "Car Wash"

So, basically, for each set of citations you build for a major building on the campus, you need to have a unique name that adheres to the guidelines, and where possible, a unique category (can be hard with schools), I HIGHLY recommend also having:

• A unique phone number for any department you list

• A unique landing page on the college website for that department, linked to from the GMB listing and all other citations.

What you need to strive for is that if English Hall has its own citations, they are consistent across the web. Moz Local can really help you ascertain inconsistencies and duplicates. You want to have the NAP+W be as consistent as possible everywhere, shoring up Google's trust in the validity of the data they have about your business.