Best Practice on Company Name in Directories/Citations

[shondarogers]

I am startingwith a new client - his official business name is Auto Budget Center Inc ...but the Inc is never used in his marketing. Would it be best practice to leave the Inc on there or am i safe not including it? His citations do currently show as "auto budget center used cars" (boooo) and occaisional as "auto budget center inc". He has never claimed or submitted any listings to any directories so i'm starting "fresh" in a sense and want to do it right the first time. Thanks!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

You would want to be consistent with what you use for Google Places and Google wants you to "Represent your business exactly as it appears in the offline world."

So the official name is your best bet.

 

[Linda Buquet]

If starting from scratch I'd use it. Other reason is for trying to minimize dupes.

If you list the name as Auto Budget Center only and Google keeps finding listings with the Inc added, she may get confused and create a dupe.

However if you enter name on Place page as Auto Budget Center Inc and there are citations for Auto Budget Center they would likely attach because included in the name.

 

[shondarogers]

got it - thanks! so inc it is!

 

[Andrew Sawyer]

You would want to be consistent with what you use for Google Places and Google wants you to "Represent your business exactly as it appears in the offline world."

So the official name is your best bet.

If starting from scratch I'd use it. Other reason is for trying to minimize dupes.

If you list the name as Auto Budget Center only and Google keeps finding listings with the Inc added, she may get confused and create a dupe.

However if you enter name on Place page as Auto Budget Center Inc and there are citations for Auto Budget Center they would likely attach because included in the name.

I'd go with the Official/Legal name of "Auto Budget Center Inc."

Later in Map Maker you can also add multiple names according to the guidelines. For this business you would select the Inc name as the 'Official' name and the "Auto Budget Center" as the Primary name (with both names getting the Local tag). The reason for doing so is that some businesses can have different primary names in various locations but the same corporate name. Also most people don't call things "YWX Inc" or "ABC Corp" they usually just drop the legal identifier.

 

[Pankaj Kumar]

Hi,

Linda is absolutely right here.
It's just a matter of making all the things correct and right.
The difference in business name keeps on making dupes. Also Google counts phone number and difference in address while creating dupes.

So better to go with a single business name.

Thanks
Pankaj Kumar

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Later in Map Maker you can also add multiple names according to the guidelines. For this business you would select the Inc name as the 'Official' name and the "Auto Budget Center" as the Primary name (with both names getting the Local tag).

Andrew, one thing I worry about with multiple names in Map Maker is that the Places page can revert to any of these names at any given time which can mess things up from a places point of view.

Are you familiar with the relationship between having multiple names on Map Maker and how they can influence/revert a business name on the places page? Would it depend on what "type" of name you assign each one in Map Maker?

Sorry, for getting slightly off of the original topic, but I think that's been resolved

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yes I'm curious about Colan's Q too.

 

[Andrew Sawyer]

Andrew, one thing I worry about with multiple names in Map Maker is that the Places page can revert to any of these names at any given time which can mess things up from a places point of view.

Are you familiar with the relationship between having multiple names on Map Maker and how they can influence/revert a business name on the places page? Would it depend on what "type" of name you assign each one in Map Maker?

Sorry, for getting slightly off of the original topic, but I think that's been resolved

Colan, i'm not sure how a page reverting to one of the names would mess things up. If I am thinking of what you're referring to correctly, some Places features will have the Name Type stripped from the name; the names aren't actually touched. This sometimes happens when Places tools are used by the Googlers, by bots, etc. I'm not quite sure what that would have on the Places/G+L page, if any.

If you don't actually edit/touch the name via the Dashboard then you shouldn't have any issues. Should any crop up just go into MapMaker, rate the old edits accordingly, and mark the appropriate name types for each name. I have never actually seen a bot change the name types, unless reverting to a previous point in the feature's history (which is where Rating the edit comes in handy; it helps train the bots).

If you have a feature that has Official, Primary and Abbreviated names then the Primary one shows on the G+L page. The Official name used to show on the old Places pages. On a Maps search the Primary Name will show and any names that have just Local as the name type will show up. The key is that you should always have a Primary Name (which is the default if no other names). The Official name tag was likely create to differentiate between what a business is officially known as verses what the majority of the world calls it (Primary). By having both names on the feature, Google doesn't have to guess what name belongs to what feature via the multiple data streams.

I hope that clears things up. If you've ever seen issues with names please let me know/start a new thread.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Colan, i'm not sure how a page reverting to one of the names would mess things up.

I am thinking from a consistency and ranking point of view. If your business is listed one way on Google Places and all of your citations and then the name on Google Places reverts to something else, it could potentially cause ranking issues.

But your answer is great and you indicated how this can be avoided

Much appreciated!