Client physical address issue

[bczubiak]

I have a client who runs a virtual office. The main office is the entire 2nd floor. There are about 20 businesses renting office space within the floor. So there are 20 businesses plus my client operating off of the 2nd floor.

Looks like client didn't really care what mailing address to use for each business within the office. When I looked on line, I am seeing many other businesses using Ste 200 as their address.

We were thinking about assigning a different address to client like Ste 280 or something that doesn't already exist.

Client address looks like this: (Not real address)

Virtual Office Center
555 N Main St Ste 200
Beverly Hills Ca 90210

Any thoughts? Comments. Client is in the 7 pack for their keyword so I usually don't want to mess with too many things when the rankings are good... but just looking at a long range solution.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hmmm, that's a tricky one and opposite of most questions I get.

When it comes to changing the suite #...

I'm very much a purist when it comes to the Google Local guidelines, since I deal with fixing problems all day AFTER someone has gotten in trouble.

So if you are making up a suite # then it's a little like making up a fake location. Here is the pertinent part of the guidelines.

- Use a precise, accurate address to describe your business location.
- Make sure that your page is created at your actual, real-world location.

Just my 'anal-about-the-rules' 2 cents. ;-)

Plus as I mention in training, any time you change NAP it can cause problems and a ranking upset or dupes.

If it was me I think I'd leave it as is.

 

[bczubiak]

Yes, kind of a strange situation.

Buy a floor of a building, share the office with many other businesses. What happens is that the the postman delivers all the mail for the building to the 2nd floor. Then there is a mail room there where people sort the mail and then deliver it to the appropriate business on that floor. So conceivably, all 50 businesses within that floor could use the same address and suite number. Pretty messed up!

So I will take your advice and leave it alone!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Ya too much water under the bridge now...

But if you were in on the ground floor, I would have had them do Suite 200 for themselves and set up a Suite 201 or whatever, that all the tenants share.