Citations with hidden address

[camcamcz]

Hello, someone recommended me to these forums and I am glad I found you guys!

I have a couple of questions. I had a business listing that I did NOT hide the address and it was ranking really high for my main keyword for almost 3 years and then it was gone because we are a service area company and google took it down. I ended up making another listing about 3 weeks ago and I have the address hidden now.

Since I have the address hidden, should I still build citations for it and have the address on the footer of my homepage?

Another question, It still says pending review in the dashboard but it's visible and active but I am not ranking high for my main keyword like I use to. Is that something that takes time?


Thank you so much in advance guys!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hey cam, welcome and thanks for asking a great question.

We have a special section for citations so I moved your post there. You'll also find related discussions in this section where we've help others with the same question.

You deleted and started a new listing after Google took you down? And it went live?

You are the 1st I've heard of that successfully did that. Normally new listings don't go live at all.
It's like the location is blocked or something.

I would NOT have advised starting over. But since you already did that... the ranking problem is likely that as any new listing, it has to start over in the ranking cycle and normally it takes 6 - 8 weeks before you'll show up at all for any KW searches.

It's also possible that since you did not know about the do not hide address issue, you may have other violations that could cause just a ranking penalty not a deletion or suspension.

Additionally it's possible that it won't rank til it pops out of pending review.

But as far as citations. It's good you have address hidden now. But yes still use your address in citations and in site footer. Google still sees the address you have listed in dash and needs to match it to your site and others, even though it's hidden on the G+ Local page.

 

[camcamcz]

Thank you for such a quick response.

My old listing actually had a different address. So this new listing I created a couple weeks ago has a different address than my old listing but this new listing's address is hidden.

The listing is already ranking for one of the keywords that the old one use to rank for. But my main keyword that has higher traffic isn't ranking yet which is a huge concern for me.

What I did so far is: Change the address on my website to the new address I'm using on the listing in the footer. All the citations I have for the old listing, I'm going to change all those addresses as well to the new one. Does this all sound right?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yes that sounds right.

ONE important question though. Why did you change address? Did you actually move? Is the local location 100% legit? If it's at a friends house, virtual office or anything other than the REAL address that you work from daily, then it's a problem.

So unless you just also HAPPENED to move right in the middle of this Google problem I wonder about this new address.

 

[camcamcz]

The new address is my home office and where I keep one of the trucks. I also do hold meetings sometimes here but I rather keep the address hidden.

 

[Linda Buquet]

OK then that's perfect. Just right!