Multiple Businesses at the Same Address
-
Hello everyone! Fairly new member here with a quick local question.
A friend is starting a new business and sharing a showroom with another local business until they close up shop in a couple of months, at which point he will take over the showroom entirely.
My question: in the meantime, what would be the best way to have two businesses at the same address? The best I can come up with to avoid the pages being merged or who knows what else would be to list one of the businesses in a non-existent suite, for example 123 S Someplace Ave, Suite 100.
Is this strategy likely to cause any problems for either business? Ideally I would like to have both businesses appear in the listings until the first one closes, at which point I will just delete the page entirely.
-
You're very welcome! I'm glad the link was helpful.
-
Hey Miriam, thanks for chiming in.
I had noticed that a lot has changed since the last time I create a g+ page, so thanks for the link with all of the updated guidelines. I will definitely be back if (when) I get lost again.
-
Hi Rbmac,
Nice answer from Donna, and I just want to add a little note here that Google has just done one of the largest overhauls to their Guidelines For Representing Your Business On Google (including changing the name, haha) that I've seen in quite some time:
https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en
The whole format of the page has been overhauled as have several key elements of the guidelines that any local business owner just getting started should read up on. Following the guidelines at the outset can save many troubles down the road.
-
I agree rbmac. Seems logical.
-
Thanks for the info Donna.
To clear a couple of things up: yes they are separate legal entities, they will each have a unique phone number and unique website. However their business categories are basically the same which is what had me concerned about the two businesses merging.
After some further discussion with this friend, it sounds like their business would actually be better classified with a service area rather than a physical address, but they want the showroom to remain on the map. So it seems like the best course of action would be to (like you say above) allow the showroom to remain under the old company name until they close up, and build up the new company as a service area business until such time as they can fully claim the address.
Thanks again for your help.
-
The rules for Google local listings are fuzzy and the results can be somewhat unpredictable. Seems clear that the two businesses are separate legal entities. It's not clear, at least not to me, whether they'll share a common phone number, website or whether their clients or business categories overlap.
You could go the route of establishing a separate suite for each of the two businesses, but you're still at risk that the data associated with the two listings will get merged. That's not quick or easy to undo.
If I were you, I'd wait a few months until the other business closes shop and then stake a claim to the address on Google local.
This question has been asked in the past. Miriam Ellis usually chimes in and she knows Local SEO inside and out. Here's the answer she gave to how to handle multiple businesses at the same address a few years ago. It's still relevant.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Disconnect MOZ Local and Google My Business
I've had problems with one of our eight branch locations when I connected GMB to Moz Local about a year ago. The location was suspended for being a duplicate. I would like to sever the connection so I could keep Moz Local live but at least temporarily delete the suspended Google My Business. Also, if you might have any guides or tutorials on performing this task it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Local Listings | | gallowaywebteam0 -
Creating multiple GMB listings same address?
Hi Guys, We have a medical centre which has different services like medical, dental, pathology, mental health and 3-4 other services. They are all at the same address within the medical centre. Currently, we have a GMB listing just for the medical centre. But we're looking to create separate GMB listings for each service. I was wondering if anyone has done this before and can speak from experience of the pros and cons of doing this? It seems we will have a lot more GMB listings to manage, but we should benefit more from relevant GMB searchers and this will improve our visibility. Cheers, Mark
Local Listings | | brandonegroup1 -
Google business listing For more then one location
Hi there, I am Newbie to SEO, So please Help me come out From this Query, I have Client Who serves @ 4 Locations. I have Registered main Business Location in Google business listing , But What if i Do, if want to add My Other 3 Locations With Different Address?? as Website, Business Name, Same, So, I am Little bit confused, What Step i can do to make that Other 3 Listing on Gbl too??? Thnx in advance,
Local Listings | | pooja.verify07
Rohit.0 -
For Google's Structured Data, should I change my listings from Product schema to Local Business schema?
I was reading Google's Structured Data spec, and I'm considering changing the schema of our listing pages from the Product schema to the Local Business schema. Is this a good idea? To give you a little more info, the pages that I'm classifying are listings for physical spaces that our website rents out for activities, such as meetings. Here's an example of a listing: https://www.peerspace.com/pages/listings/550ddcde2f352d0800fc186b Our goal is to add the proper schema.org tags to the page so that our spaces show up in local searches, such as "meeting space in San Francisco." The problem is that when we add location microdata (addressLocality, addressRegion, etc.) to our current "Product" schema, Google tells us that "Products" can't have a location. However, we aren't quite a "Local Business" either, since we don't publicly share our space's street addresses—only the space's neighborhood/city/state for privacy reasons. As a result, we get an error from Google's Structured Data Tool as a "Local Business" page because "streetAddress" is required for Local Businesses. Should we switch to the Local Business schema anyway, even though we get structured data errors for streetAddress? Or is it better not to include the location information in the microdata so that we don't have errors? Does Google penalize you for incomplete tags? Any input is appreciated!
Local Listings | | stuartstein0 -
Beauty salon and chiropractor sharing the same address
Hi There. I have my very first client who wants me to help with her GMB profile and online visibility in general.
Local Listings | | coolhandluc
She rents a space at a chiropractic clinic (she is a one man band so doesn't need much room).
The owner of the chiropractic clinic has a GMB profile and the beauty therapist has hers too but obviously, they both share the same address. Is this going to be an issue since they both run different businesses under different names and both have different phone numbers? They would only have the same address.
I don't want to screw this up so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks0 -
Local citations - domain or business name
I have a bit of a tricky situation with a client where there is some history with old domains. But this is the current situation which I need to stick to: Business name (all made up) is Acme Print 2 live websites - acme-niche(dot)com and productsandservices(dot)com Third website acmeprint(dot)com is live and owned by an old partner, different NAP. acme-niche(dot)com and productsandservices(dot)com share the same NAP. Not much traffic and a bit of a poor domain profile for acme-niche(dot)com, so suggest just using productsandservices(dot)com. Also acme-niche(dot)com would be a bit misleading for use for the whole business in any case. However, all content for productsandservices(dot)com refers to Acme Print. Because of all the confusion should we keep the productsandservices(dot)com referring to Acme Print throughout, or update with new productsandservices(dot)com logo, mention that it is a trading name of Acme Print and refer to the trading domain name throughout the content. I want to know the best option for listings and citations - the trading name which is a domain name or Acme Print? I've not worked with a local site where domain name and business name and a separate business with domain are mixed up.
Local Listings | | MickEdwards0 -
Two businesses with the same adress
Hi Guys, A client of mine took over an competitors site 12 months ago. They sell almost the same products and both websites now list the same address on their contact page. Local search isn’t really important to them (webshops). They aren’t really active with Google plus reviews. but I’m still wondering. Could this cause any ranking problems? A lot of online citations still mention the old competitors address and two almost identical company’s with the same address sounds like an bad idea. Any suggestions about this topic? Just as a side note: the competitors site lost a lot of traffic, which is caused by a lot of different problems (double site migration were they didn’t think about SEO). So I would love the hear your thoughts about this specific ranking problem. Thanks a lot!
Local Listings | | Bob_van_Biezen0 -
Why does Google only display a 3 pack of local business results for some terms?
We have seen a pattern in the Google UK SERPS where only three local listings are triggered for a query although they have a more local results to show but chose to only show three: Anyone else seen this? Anyone know why? Is there a magic number for them to trigger a six pack, does the data set they pull from need to be larger for them to trigger more local listings. "Solicitors Cambridge" = 3 listings https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=solicitors+cambridge&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=_vCwVc2mHMiAUZ-luZAE "solicitors kent" = 3 listings https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=solicitors+cambridge&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=_vCwVc2mHMiAUZ-luZAE#q=solicitors+kent "Solicitors Oxford" = 6 listings https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=solicitors+cambridge&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=_vCwVc2mHMiAUZ-luZAE Any thoughts?
Local Listings | | highwayfive1