You're welcome, Omer!

It's my very great pleasure!

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.

Hi Susannah,

Google My Business listings relate entirely to physical locations. So, if you have 2 physical locations, you are eligible for 2 GMB listings. However, the practice should definitely assign a unique phone number to the second location, as Google wants the number you list to connect as directly as possible to the location.

Having the same business name is no problem at all, and, in fact, you should not add any modifying keywords to either name (like a city name). List the name exactly as it appears in the real business world for both listings.

Finally, in regards to web pages: it's ideal to create a unique landing page on the website for each of the physical locations. So, the GMB listing for Location A would link to the landing page on the company site for Location A, and the GMB listing for Location B would link to the landing page on the site for Location B. Location landing pages represent very powerful opportunities to target content to a specific set of users. Make the content unique and as helpful as possible, and don't forget to put the name, address and phone of the business at the top of its respective landing page. Finally, be sure the citation set you build for Location A links to landing page A, and the same goes for Location B.

You can read more about landing pages here on the Moz Blog: https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages

Hope this helps!

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.

Cross posting just to be sure CalicoKitty sees ... I think the filter may have changed. Check out: https://moz.com/community/q/community-discussion-did-your-google-listing-suddenly-disappear#reply_350579

Wishing you good luck! Spammers really give me the blues.

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!

Hey CalicoKitty!

I totally get how bizarre and stressful this is. Can you provide a bit more detail regarding what the 505 vs. the 500 address is in relationship to your business? I would be inclined to actually sit tight on this for a couple of weeks to see if the behavior stops. It strikes me as totally untenable that Google would show only 1 doctor at a large medical practice, etc. Please, do explain to me about the 2 addresses you have and whether any other business is sharing the alternate address.

Newsflash on this. Thanks to the good folks over at the Local Search Forum, we have insight on this, Calico. Look up 'fishing charters cape canaveral' and then click on the map. In Google Maps, zoom in on the results and you'll see your listing reappear in the local finder. I was able to find you doing this.

Joy Hawkins is offering these thoughts:

1. I believe Google is A/B testing at the moment which explains the crazy fluctuation we're still seeing daily on trackers like Algoroo

2. I believe the criteria for the local search results filter has changed and is now filtering businesses in the same category in the same building. I have a client in NYC who is popping in and out of the 3-pack and every time he disappears, the guy in his building who offers the same service appears and vice versa.

I'm a member at that forum and am going to link to our example of your business here, to add to the examples Local SEOs are looking at to try to establish a pattern. This is not a solution, yet, but we are at least on the right track now. Highly recommend you read the whole thread over there and look at the examples of other businesses experiencing this. Hang in there!

****Heads-up CalicoKtity - feel free to skip this response and look at my next one. I've figured out what happened to your listing!

Ah, okay, thank you for clarifying that. Some more questions/observations. Please note, I'm just reeling these off as I look:

1. From what I can see, your business is outside of the official boundaries of Cape Canaveral. Here's how Google outlines Cape Canaveral:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cape+Canaveral,+FL+32920/@28.3882309,-80.6241774,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x88e0a5ab39504c9b:0xbb0bb0f57a55d19e!8m2!3d28.3922182!4d-80.6077132

vs. your location which appears to be associated with Port Canaveral:

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

Is your official USPS address Cape or Port Canaveral? I am asking, because I see that the website and the GMB listing both list you as being in Cape Canaveral, but for whatever reason, your map marker is outside of Google's designation of that city's borders. Can you let us know what the scenario is with the address, please?

2. As I mentioned earlier, there was a local pack shakeup, and some spam seems to have reemerged in some packs. So, it could be that this is impacting you. Did you read the articles I had shared?

3. Hmm, yeah, I'm concerned about what you're experiencing, looking at what is ranking. Your competitors for the search 'fishing charter cape canaveral' are all located along that strip of shoreline that I guess is Port Canaveral, so if this is the cluster/centroid Google associates with this search, you SHOULD be ranking amongst these competitors. Have you received any notifications from Google, have you seen anything notifications in Google Search Console, or anything like that? I'm guessing not, but just checking. You are definitely absent from the local finder results, as far as I can see, and I believe there is genuine cause for concern about this.

4. The advice you got from the Google rep sounds totally useless to me. There reps sometimes give really poor answers Please, look at your edit history in your Google My Business dashboard (https://support.google.com/business/answer/3480441?hl=en) to see if you see any edits there. Let me know exactly what you see.

5. As the Google rep was so unhelpful, I highly recommend post in Google's Forum (https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Google-My-Business/ct-p/GMB#) in hopes that a TC will be able to take an internal look at what happened. I understand, your business is on the line here, so I'm making this suggestion that you plead for help there.

Feel free to keep coming back here with what you learn. This is pretty mysterious and I know how important it is to your business to figure out what happened.

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.

Hi There!

Just to clarify, you are saying that your client is the only business located at this address and that this other company is NOT located there. Is that right? And is your client also an SEO firm, or are they in a different category entirely?

Hi There,

Can you please clarify what you mean by this:

On my knowledge panel, it says "Fishing Charter in Port Canaveral, Florida"

Are you saying you created a Google My Business listing with that as the business title, instead of your legal business name?