GPS Address vs. Postal Address GBP Confusion

[Shelly]

I have a GPS vs. mailing address GBP conundrum. See attached map.

The business's physical location is on a private gravel driveway named Crescent Bay Drive. Google does know this road, but the post office will NOT deliver mail there (I know because I was a customer before they were a client, and I was told that I could not mail a check to the address). We updated all NAP references to use the real mailing address, but the client is now repeatedly saying that customers are having a difficult time finding the business via GPS since it is not clear where to go when you reach the top of that gravel road (despite a large sign pointing people down the road).

What is best practice if GPS doesn't match the postal address for a brick-and-mortar business like this? I have tried numerous times to get the client to understand that the mailing address is what we should use in GBP (frankly, that is where I used to go to find the mailing address for my checks), but they feel like they are losing business due to how they are listed in Google?

Any thoughts would be incredibly helpful.

 

[JS Girard]

Try to change the address manually via suggestion post-validation? It's been about our only successful trick.

 

[Shelly]

Try to change the address manually via suggestion post-validation? It's been about our only successful trick.

I am looking for overall advice on whether I should change the address. Can I assume that based on your response, you believe it should be the client-requested GPS-friendly address, not the postal address? I'm just not sure if there is a best practice which address to use in GBP for a situation like this.

 

[JS Girard]

My advice is:

• If you haven't validated yet, validate at the address that's on file. Otherwise the Google agent will get pissy about that.
• Don't be afraid to adjust the map pin position even before the validation. That should not be an issue anymore (and if nervous you can use suggestions).
• If the client absolutely demands that the address be the "physical" one, try to use suggestions to do it. Using the physical address on website and citations may help.

the worse that can happen with suggestions is 1) it's rejected, or google later reverse, but then you do the suggestion again 2) Google could create a dupe at the postal address later on.

The GPS issue is, tbh, a nightmare scenario when it shows up: I've seen multiple cases where Google Maps insists on using the address location and not the pin location no matter what you do, causing all sorts of havoc.