2 legit businesses, 1 address | What to do?

[Big.Joe]

The problem:

I have a long time established google+ page for a service business.

Wife is launching a new business from home. Now what?

Seems like google will merge listings sooner or later ( according to threads here and there )

The only true solution is for one business to get a real office and setup shop. This is just not realistic at the present moment.

The only other solutions I have read is to use suite numbers to differentiate the businesses. This had been advised against both here and other places as well. Mainly because it would become a fake listing at that point.

Businesses are completely unrelated. Will have different phone lines. Will not have anything in common such as catagories, etc.

Is a suite number the way to go?

What would you do in this situation? Thank you all in advance.

 

[Linda Buquet]

No I would not do a fake suite. For the obvious reason that it's a violation to create a listing where the business does not exist and if there is no real world suite, it's fake IMO. But also because mods will look on maps, see it's a house and know there is not a suite.

If it's separate owners like husband and wife, each answering phone and doing the work for their respective businesses, then you should be OK. Just be sure like you said different numbers, cats, sites, be sure no crossover anywhere. And be sure each phone is answered with the respective business name because moderators do call and how you answer phone is important.

Thing is if in the real world it's really 2 different businesses it should be OK. It's just that too many game the system and for instance try to do a separate listings when it's really just different services offered by the same person/company.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Linda,

I've had an issue with this before. Either one business will rank and the other won't, etc.

However, I've only had experience with it once. The company, for example, was named "Quality Builders" and the other company was named "Quality Exteriors". "Quality Exteriors" never got off the ground in Places search but "Quality Builders" did.

This could have been because of similar names (had different websites and phone numbers). Could have been because of similar industries (not sure how that would affect it without a manual review). Not sure.

Joe, make sure you come back and let us know how it goes!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yes Joshua that's exactly the kind that usually won't fly. That the type of case that to Google I think really looks like 2 divisions of the same company and is too closely related.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Fair enough

Hope it works for Joe though!