Google Changed My Address (Street Name)

[Dan]

My company owns two self storage facilities on a frontage road about 3 blocks apart. We have owned and operated them for over 30 years. So they have been listed in the telephone book and other places for a while.


My question is who or what determines the name of a street. Is it the state, county or somebody else? It currently does not seem that important to Google to have an exact match NAP, at least for the street name. For 30 years we have used N. I-70 Frontage Rd. Before I-70 was put in the street was W 48^th St. which shares the name on some of the street signs when I recently checked and it is shown that way on some maps. It is also shown as a N I-70 Service Road in some places.


I claimed the Google listing back when it was Google Local. At that time I used N. I-70 Frontage Rd. I created citations with this exact NAP to acquire my rankings. I was able to rank these businesses number 1 and number 3 in the Google listing.


Out of the blue, a couple of months ago, Google changed the street name in the Google places listings to Interstate 70 Frontage Rd N. The Google places listings are now 1 and 4. I believe that part of the reason for the listing to drop to number 4 is that Google screwed up and made that listing South. For both of these listings I have gone in and changed it back to the original street name but Google has not approved it. I have also tried to convey to Google that the location is on the north side not the south side but they have not responded.


My real question and concern is what becomes of the value of my citations with an incorrect street when Google gets around to comparing them to the Google places listing. Nobody probably knows except Google.

Anybody have any suggestions?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for posting. This sounds complicated. I think to be able to help you we need links to both listings. We have Google Regional Expert Reviewers that are gurus at Google maps issues like this and could probably help but, we'd need to look on maps and look at the Map Maker history.

So links to the G+ Local pages are all we need and we should be able to research from there.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

There is a lot of debate lately over address formatting issues. I have several clients who have experienced the exact same "re-formatting" to their address all of a sudden that you have described.

There is a consensus that exact match NAP is important, but there is also a lot of agreement that Google is pretty good at matching up slightly different formatting such as "North" vs "N", "Ste" vs "Suite"...etc.

Are you able to post a link to your listing for a closer look?

 

[Dan]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]No problem.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Well crap! Won't you know it Google last night did some sort of change. I checked the listings yesterday for the post and today in checking for
this reply things have changed. And they have changed rather
significantly for one of my listings. My number one listing has
dropped to number one on the second page of Maps.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]My key word search in Google is self storage arvada co. The two listings
are for National Self Storage ? Denver and I-70 Self Storage.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]National Self Storage ? Denver[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]https://plus.google.com/10925720559...hl=en#109257205590598343720/about?gl=us&hl=en[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]
I-70 Self Storage[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]https://plus.google.com/107728349969844065432/about?hl=en#107728349969844065432/about?hl=en[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]National Self Storage in this change did move above Google+ Local Pages in organic search which I have not experienced in a long time so maybe some good has come from this.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Thanks for you interest and help.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Dan[/FONT]

 

[Flash]

To answer your question, the body responsible for naming (or approving a developers name) is usually the one that then owns and maintains it. So for a city road, the city regulates the names.

Looking at your road, the naming is not up to date; it is only named West 48th Avenue (road are always named in full, and then the system auto-abbreviates when displaying them). Roads can have multiple names, but no other name is connected to the road.

Your listing history shows the name was changed on the Places database, so I don't know what caused the change. A data import is the most likely, human edits are done on the database at which I'm looking.

As for what the proper name is, your city's GIS system provides I70 Frontage Rd N. Within the Maps database we would thus make that Interstate 70 Frontage Road North.

What we need to do to keep your road name stable is to get the road named properly, and then to assign one of those names to your listing. You should then make it match in your dashboard. Right now, if a change is suggested, the system is probably going "Sure, why not, I have no idea where he's located right now" as you are not attached to an actual road that exists in the database.

I'm about to eat dinner, but I'll work on adding the road name later tonight. I might have to do more research to check on the West 48th Avenue name; I don't see it in the GIS.

 

[Flash]

This has turned out to be much more complex that I expected, and I'm consulting other people. Some of the issues:

• Along this 1 mile long road there are at least 5 different names on the street signs, most of which match the USPS address, and none of which match the name on the city GIS.
• The street itself, while only 1 mile long, is in two cities with a total of three properties in the middle that are in unincorporated area
• One of your businesses is in the city, one is in the unincorporated area.

When we add multiple street names, we need to mark if they are primary, official, obscure, etc. I think it will take a bit of discussion before we figure out how to do all of these.

 

[Andrew Sawyer]

My key word search in Google is self storage arvada co. The two listings
are for National Self Storage ? Denver and I-70 Self Storage.
National Self Storage ? Denver
https://plus.google.com/10925720559...hl=en#109257205590598343720/about?gl=us&hl=en

Part of the problem on the street name is that I-70 Frontage Road North wasn't extended past the front of either location. I have initiated an edit to place it on the map so it can be used for addressing. This location is in Jefferson County not Avarda, so the City has to be set for the county as it is in an unincorporated place. Google uses physical addresses for mapping an as such this can throw things off. Plus it is always good to be accurate. Once the road name is approved I suggest you go into MapMaker and edit your feature to make sure the addresses conform to the fully-spelled out names in the drop-downs, ie street name and state, as well as choosing Jefferson in the City field.

I-70 Self Storage
https://plus.google.com/107728349969844065432/about?hl=en#107728349969844065432/about?hl=en
National Self Storage in this change did move above Google+ Local Pages in organic search which I have not experienced in a long time so maybe some good has come from this.

Once the road name is approved I suggest you go into MapMaker and edit your feature to make sure the addresses conform to the fully-spelled out names in the drop-downs, ie street name and state.

I have a non-address question about this facility. You mention National Self Storage in reference to this facility but it has a separate website and nowhere on it mentions National Self Storage. Could you clarify the discrepancy? Do they both have names of National Self Storage but this one you call I-70 Self Storage? If so National Self Storage should be added as the Official name in Map Maker.

Some of the issues:

• Along this 1 mile long road there are at least 5 different names on the street signs, most of which match the USPS address, and none of which match the name on the city GIS.
• The street itself, while only 1 mile long, is in two cities with a total of three properties in the middle that are in unincorporated area

When we add multiple street names, we need to mark if they are primary, official, obscure, etc. I think it will take a bit of discussion before we figure out how to do all of these.

I think the ("I 70 Service Road" "N I 70 Service Rd") are all old and/or derivatives of I70 Frontage Rd N, which I believe is the Primary name. I have at this point only added a Local tag into Maps for I70 Frontage Rd N as there are a few moving parts to this road as Flash mentions. I suspect that in Arvada the road is I70 Frontage Rd N but in Jefferson it is N I70 Frontage Rd but I have yet to confirm. If that is the case then the opposite name will be marked as an obscure name and vice-versa in the unincorporated place.

If W 48th St is indeed an old name it should have a Obscure road name so that it can still be found but doesn't render, but the only issue is that if its still on the street signs it should likely be labeled on the map as a Primary name (even if not used for addressing. In Map Maker you can have two Primary road names for one street, they just have to be added in separate edits.


For now I would wait until it can be nailed down so that you only have to change things once. Currently the issue is likely your address is further away from the Road than Map Maker recognizes, which is why it doesn't show in the drop-down.

Given there are many jurisdictional boundaries and confusing addressing. I suggest you add an Address plot in Map Maker once the road names are finalized. This is an added step to ensure that Google Maps can interpret the address on the fly as well as matching up an address to a feature.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Wow, you guys are awesome!

Amazing information.

 

[Flash]

If you want to see how messed up the local governments have made the situation, here's a jpg I made as we tried to figure this out, just to keep track. The balloons that are see through with red writing represent the street signs visible at each street corner. GIS stands for Graphical Information System, which is online mapping, which normally would be the authority to go to but would also normally match the street signs since they both come from the same source.

Screens for Forum -Google+

 

[Flash]

This took hours, but we have the road names all fixed. Including the portion of the frontage road that is west of the freeway exit, I think there were about 14 different names that either went the length or a portion. Some stretches of the road now have 7 names applied to them, which will present them in the drop downs in Map Maker.

What would you like the road name to be in the end? The one the post office is using? The official one from the city for your east location and from the county for your west location? Or the ones that are on the street signs? (I'm not offering the other ones that also apply to this stretch)

---------- Post Merged at 12:56 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 12:56 AM ----------

This took hours, but we have the road names all fixed. Including the portion of the frontage road that is west of the freeway exit, I think there were about 14 different names that either went the length or a portion. Some stretches of the road now have 7 names applied to them, which will present them in the drop downs in Map Maker.

What would you like the road name to be in the end? The one the post office is using? The official one from the city for your east location and from the county for your west location? Or the ones that are on the street signs? (I'm not offering the other ones that also apply to this stretch)