Service Area Business - Multiple locations

[divotagency]

Any one with experience and the plus'/minus' of setting up one brick and mortar location with a physical address and setting up additional service area GMBs using the same address for verification (but hiding the address in GMB) and using a different telephone number? I'm not sure what Google's policy is on this matter.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Can you provide an example of what you mean, even if it is hypothetical?

 

[divotagency]

I create a business listing for XYZ Plumbing. Their headquarters is at 12345 First Street Disneyland, CA 12345. So we create and verify this listing and set the GMB to display address. Now the owner ALSO has a service area for XYZ Plumbing in San Francisco, CA but no physical location. Knowing that a 'physical address' is needed to create a listing... can said business create one with the 12345 First Street address , different phone number and then set the service area to San Francisco, CA without issue and in accordance to Google guidelines?

The end result would be one listing in Disneyland, CA that displays address and the another listing with a unique number with service area set to San Francisco, CA that doesn't display address.

Note* I know many will use virtual offices, home addresses or other means to do this... Id like to know if this has been done without any significant issue.

 

[LaurenHoward]

Hey!
In my experience discussing this type of situation with Google support and reviewing the guidelines, you cannot use the same address for two listings for the same business, hidden or not, otherwise it can be flagged as a duplicate (exceptions being department and practitioner listings, etc.).
Even if the address is hidden, Google can still see the address on the back end and guidelines state that if you have a storefront you should use that listing and add additional service areas to it rather than create a separate, SAB GMB.

The only time Google support allowed me to do two listings without two storefronts (one was storefront and one was SAB) was because:
1. The SAB listing was in different state from the storefront, so completely separate territory
2. The address used to verify the SAB on the backend was a different address than the storefront
3. And the SAB address was an address also owned by the business owner (it wasn't an employee's house or PO box, etc.).

 

[Colan Nielsen]

I create a business listing for XYZ Plumbing. Their headquarters is at 12345 First Street Disneyland, CA 12345. So we create and verify this listing and set the GMB to display address. Now the owner ALSO has a service area for XYZ Plumbing in San Francisco, CA but no physical location. Knowing that a 'physical address' is needed to create a listing... can said business create one with the 12345 First Street address , different phone number and then set the service area to San Francisco, CA without issue and in accordance to Google guidelines?

No, that situation would not be eligible according to Google. You can't create a second listing to cover a service area.