Service Establishment Business

[gregr]

I have a customer that is a roofer. His primary category is Roofing Contractor with a secondary category Roofing Supply Store. I have noticed that several competitors have added service establishment and they seem to be doing better in results in suburbs adjacent to our primary city in which we are listed. The roofing company has been strong in the 3 pack for many years in both the city and the suburbs now we are losing position in the suburbs. If we stop showing the business address so we get categorized as a Service Establishment, will this hurt out current positions?

 

[keyserholiday]

Service establishment is not a category that can be added when you hide the address. Any time you switch from showing the address to hiding, it can impact your rankings and performance.

 

[gregr]

Thanks

 

[JS Girard]

To reword Jason's explanation: Service Establishment is a "hidden category" that is automatically applied to businesses whose address is not shown. It is hiding the address that has been shown to sometimes (against all statements to the contrary by Google) affect rankings, not this phantom category.

(Mind you, because the two are inextricably connected, we cannot entirely discount that it is indeed the category and not the address that is somehow the cause of the ranking issues, but this cannot be verified.)