Local Business w/ Multiple Location & Only 1 Phone Number

[Jason]

Here is an interesting one I wanted some opinions on. I have a client who is a service area business with one main location but has several other offices in the same metro that are mainly just trucks that dispatch for that area. Only the main location has a phone number. The other locations do not have a phone number (literally just work off cell phones) and are not truly locations but they do appear automatically on Google My Business sometimes (and pick up some phone number that is incorrect).

Should I create individual Listings for each location with the same phone number or try to suppress them. I'm worried having the same number will cause issues but maybe it will help them rank in the local markets better. Thoughts anyone?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Jason, I wouldn't create individual listings for them because they aren't acceptable locations according to Google's guidelines.

You should see if you can find the source of the scraped listings and clean that up so they stop being created. The more listings you have with the same phone number, the better the odds that Google gets confused.

 

[Jason]

Hi Colan,

Thanks for your feedback. I have spent countless time trying to get rid of the listings but it appears they are registered on some offline business directories and continue to find their way online. I'm afraid this will continue to happen and when they do, its always a bogus number that they lose customers from. Tough situation.