GMB name and company name

[Jerem]

Hello,

I've seen couple companies that don't use their exact company names in the GMB.

I work for a company that have a long brand name (34 letters) , so I'm wondering if it's possible to make it shorter ?

Does the GMB page name should be necessary the same that the ones I used in other citations ?

Thanks

 

[James Watt]

Hi Jerem,

if you look at Google's Business Guidelines, it says:

Your name should reflect your business? real-world name, as used consistently on your storefront, website, stationery, and as known to customers. Accurately representing your business name helps customers find your business online.

Yes, there are many companies using incorrect names for various reasons (the most obvious one being keyword stuffing... which unfortunately still works). I'd recommend keeping your GMB name the same as what you use across the board in all your citations. Consistency does matter. If your company is using a 34 letter brandname everywhere else, you should use that name on Google too.

 

[Jerem]

Thanks James

 

[SEOExpertBrad]

+ city or + service will rank higher in local, thus many people take advantage and google does little.

 

[SEOExpertBrad]

Perfect example. I own dallaswebsitedesign.com , my business is dallas website design inc, yet there are 5 dallas website design listed in google. After I refocus on that biz, I will start complaining.

 

[James Watt]

Yeah, it's unfortunate, but name spam is still a big deal in Google, and the penalties aren't as high as they might be. I wouldn't be surprised if that changes this year though. Web dev especially is a rough industry, good luck.

 

[diptimayee]

Google guidelines has clearly informed that you should use the real world business name in GMB but many businesses are adding keyword optimized business name and it's very surprising that they are getting good results in Google Places. Even it's inspiring others to follow this technique for getting rank.

So Google has not got enough success in fighting such kind of spam in GP. It's best to follow Google guidelines else there could be Google penalty in future.

 

[James Watt]

Tim, one of the Google TCs wrote about this two months ago. It's worth the 5 minutes if anyone's interested in a little more background. There's a great book called Cyber Fraud: the web of lies going into even more detail about the state of spam on Google, definitely worth the read.

But yeah, the short answer... it's a problem, and hopefully Google fixes it. For now, the best you can do is keep an eye on other companies your clients (or your business) is competing with, and report any name violations.

 

[Digital Sapiens]

Yeah The GMB name and Company name must be the same.The Company name should be consistent across the web.To know more about local ranking factors visit Local SEO Cheatsheet

 

[BenFisher]

I concur with Tom here, I too would not be surprised if Google enforces this-this year. It is a tough nut to crack and hard to automate.