New Address for SAB Questions

[therkf]

Hi, all! I would appreciate any guidance you can offer with this scenario.

A new client has an SAB listing as she goes to clients to work on their premises. Her current registered business address (home - not shown on her listing) is in a town an hour away from her SAB area.

She is moving to a new address within the SAB, and is wondering if anything needs to be changed in her GBP. This will still be an SAB situation, so does she need to do anything with her GBP at this point? She's already set to "No location, deliveries and home services only".

Leave it as-is?

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

Hey @therkf! Others may have differing opinions but I think you should change the SAB address to her new address, especially if it is her legal business address. However, be prepared to possibly to reverify the GBP after the change.

If she doesn't change the GBP address and is no longer is in control of the former address, then other problems may occur with the GBP in the future, for example it could be suspended because the new resident of the former address opens their own SAB and requests a GBP. It could become a lot messier down the road if you have to prove anything to Google and all her business stuff (licenses, bills, etc) have the new address and you can't get mail at the old address. Better to deal it now then have a potentially more serious issue arise in the future.

 

[therkf]

Thanks, @JeffClevelandTN

It's very rare for me to work with a strictly SAB client. Almost always brick-n-mortar retail or professional office. So this is new territory anyway, and NMX is adding to the unknown.

I seem to recall (for whatever that's worth) that in the old dashboard there was still an address that was editable on the profile, even if it was an SAB. Is that right?

Now in NMX, there is no address shown, nothing to edit. The only option is to choose to expose the address, which then gives me a blank address form.

So maybe there's really nothing to do?

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

Hey @therkf, yes you are correct regarding the SAB address pre-NMX. GBP used to show the address but you had the option of displaying it or not. Checking an SAB client of ours, shows what you described, the NMX is different. So how will Google be able to tell/enforce if someone is violating their TOS, for example, 2-hour drive time, if they are not storing the address any longer?

Tagging some of the GBP experts to hopefully get their feedback . @Colan Nielsen @Phil Rozek @keyserholiday

 

[keyserholiday]

Google can see the address in the backend. They removed the ability to see the address is the API, which is frustrating. When I worked on reinstatements, I always made sure that I set the address manually.

 

[therkf]

Google can see the address in the backend. They removed the ability to see the address is the API, which is frustrating. When I worked on reinstatements, I always made sure that I set the address manually.

So if they can see the address in the backend, and the address needs to be updated, but we can't see the address to change it ... what's the best course of action?

 

[Phil Rozek]

@therkf,:what @JeffClevelandTN suggested is also what I'd suggest, overall, for the reasons both he and @keyserholiday stated. Google still knows the address your client verified at, and takes it into account in decicing (geographically) where she should rank and where's too far away.

If I understand your situation correctly, and if you take Jeff's suggestions (which I probably ), your client will need to enter the new address, complete the owner-verification, and then (if privacy is a concern) remove the address again and possibly specify the service area again.

Is that a hassle? Yes. Could your client run into problems? Yes, as always. But it preempts enough problems that it's probably worth the trouble on the whole.

Two big caveats - occasions when the above probably would not be worth it:

1. If your client is in a super-saturated market, one where there's a competitor every other block, and your client's current old address was in a strategic or central location, and the new address is out in the sticks. In very saturated markets Google is extra location-sensitive (seemingly even when the address is hidden), so in that situation you may not want to cash in the "location" chips just yet.

2. The opposite: if your client is in a space with sparse competition, such that there aren't many competitors between the old location and the new one, and such that a competitor is very unlikely to move into the old location. In that case re-verifying at the new address probably isn't worth it.

 

[therkf]

Thank you both so much.

The client is in a saturated area, moving from the sticks into one of the SAB metros. I think we'll go ahead with the address change.