A GMB suspended story (happy end) + a question

[AlexPete]

Hi there, just wanted to share this story with you.
I wake up one morning with the listing for a plumber suspended. What I did two days before is that I changed the address to show service areas.

Did I miss something during this process?

It had the owner's address listed - which for a plumber doesen't make much sense. I did my research and all the plumbers in the area have the location listed as opposed to a service area so I said ok, let me test this out myself and see the impact. Two days later, suspension.

After another two days (today) the listing was re-instated (I've submitted a document to Google).

Also the question: why are plumbers showing their address (home for smaller, office for larger)??? I had an idea why but have no data to show.

Thanks.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@AlexPete, I'm not sure if your client has multiple GMB pages, but if so, overlapping service areas could have caused the suspension.

In general, contractors list the address rather than a service area for at least one of three reasons:

1. You'll usually rank better for location-specific and "near me" terms if your address is explicit. (At least in my experience and in others'.)

2. If the address isn't shady, Google's somewhat less likely to remove the GMB page entirely if it's specified clearly (rather than hidden post-verification). On the other hand, if you're using a shady address and want to make it harder for competitors to "prove" it, you're more likely to hide the address, just because Google has a tendency to leave things alone in the absence of damning information.

3. Because many others do it, in which case it's a matter of following suit.

 

[AlexPete]

Thanks, Phil, makes sense. He has only one listing and it was re-instated in less than 48h. But good to know about your other points.