Is it best course of action to use "PO Box" for citations and directories in terms of ranking?

[Chris CCMM-STM]

Client has his GBP set up as a SAB so the address is hidden - but he uses a PO Box as his mailing address. For all the other citations and directories, should we use the PO Box or his home address for optimal ranking performance?

Advice on this thread: GMB uses residential address—but client wants to use PO Box for other citations... suggested to use the home address on the local listings that let you hide the address, and skip the listings that insist on a full address.

But our goal is to be presence to more citations and directories as much as possible.

Hope anyone can give good advice, Thank You!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Use the same address that you used to verify the Google Business Profile. If privacy is a major issue then only use the citation sites that allow you to hide the address. Otherwise just leave the address visible on some of the citation sites.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@STM, what Colan said.

Also, there's no benefit in using a PO Box for your citations. The only time a PO Box helps your rankings in any significant way is if you use it for your GMB page, but that's generally not a good move. So you'll want to use the home address for the citations, hide the address where possible, and skip the sites where it's not possible.

Here is a good list of hidden-address sites: Hidden Address Sites
(It's a more-up-to-date version of a list I put together years ago.)

On many of those sites you can also specify a service area.

 

[Chris CCMM-STM]

Thank you so much for all your advice and input @Phil Rozek and @Colan Nielsen, That's very helpful!

With that said, we will go with the home address.

Thanks!

 

[Chris CCMM-STM]

Hi Guys,

The client isn't positive now if they used their home address or their PO Box to register their google SAB listing originally - but their PO Box is in Wilson NC and their home address is outside of town about 20 miles out of Wilson city center.

We have the OK to use the home address for any and all directories and citations - but would there be any issues with his GBP and rankings if we used the home address everywhere else and he got the verification card sent to his PO Box?

 

[Chris CCMM-STM]

Hi Guys,

The client isn't positive now if they used their home address or their PO Box to register their google SAB listing originally - but their PO Box is in Wilson NC and their home address is outside of town about 20 miles out of Wilson city center.

We have the OK to use the home address for any and all directories and citations - but would there be any issues with his GBP and rankings if we used the home address everywhere else and he got the verification card sent to his PO Box?

Hi @Phil Rozek and @Colan Nielsen, Hope you're doing great. Sorry to bother you, but I don't think my follow up question last Thursday has been seen by anyone, I hope you two can give another advice on my question, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank You!

 

[Phil Rozek]

That's a tough one, @Chris STM. You may run into problems if you verify at the PO box. The main one is that Google may suspend the page as soon as you enter the verification PIN. Even if that doesn't happen, the rankings may drag if there's a mismatch between the GMB address and the address used on all of the other sites.

Even if you've hidden the address, Google knows where the business is ostensibly located, because it knows the address used for verification.

I'd suggest using the home address to verify the page, and then just hiding the address.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

I agree with Phil. If they are using the PO Box it's just a matter of time before Google suspends the listing. Or at the very least, GBP support might not help you if you contact them for other issues until you fix the address.

I think you have two options. First, what Phil suggested. Add the home address, re-verify, clear the address. Before that though, you could try contacting GBP support, explain the situation and they might be able to confirm which address you used to verify the listing.

 

[Chris CCMM-STM]

Guess we need to contact GBP support and/or add the home address to the Google listing and re-verify if triggered, which is most likely.

Thanks for the advice @Colan Nielsen and @Phil Rozek , appreciate it!