Suite vs STE vs # In Your Citation Addresses

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks for letting us know Andrew! But it makes my head hurt just thinking about the issues that may cause on the US Google+ Local listing side of the house.

Added an alert to 1st post in this thread and made this thread a sticky to make it easier to find and reference when needed.

 

[Travis Van Slooten]

O.K...just to make sure I understand this. When I enter a suite # for a client in PLACES (i.e. suite 200), I should put the street address in line 1 and then "#200" in line two, correct?

And I assume this isn't retroactive...like I shouldn't go back and change this for current clients as they either have "Suite 200" or just "200" currently.

Why can't Google just create a new "Suite field" in Places so nobody enters the wrong thing??? This is yet another case where I just shake my head. It seems so obvious.

Travis Van Slooten

 

[Linda Buquet]

And I assume this isn't retroactive...like I shouldn't go back and change this for current clients as they either have "Suite 200" or just "200" currently.

Why can't Google just create a new "Suite field" in Places so nobody enters the wrong thing??? This is yet another case where I just shake my head. It seems so obvious.

Be advised just changing suite to # or moving from line 1 to line 2 can sometimes cause lost reviews or impact ranking. So I would not change it.

Plus this is not like a Places guideline you have to abide by. Those are rules for mappers, creating and editing map features. But again since G+L and MM overlap, interface, collide and conflict at times, it's kinda sort interrelated but not always. (I know that was gray and muddy as heck, like most of G local is.)

The biggest issue I see is that if a mapper or maybe bot touches your listing they may change suite to # and move it in front of street which is going to look to customers like the business is retarded and does not know how to enter a proper address. AND it could mess up citations. So ya, just kinda sucks!

 

[Andrew Sawyer]

Be advised just changing suite to # or moving from line 1 to line 2 can sometimes cause lost reviews or impact ranking. So I would not change it.

Plus this is not like a Places guideline you have to abide by. Those are rules for mappers, creating and editing map features. But again since G+L and MM overlap, interface, collide and conflict at times, it's kinda sort interrelated but not always. (I know that was gray and muddy as heck, like most of G local is.)

The biggest issue I see is that if a mapper or maybe bot touches your listing they may change suite to # and move it in front of street which is going to look to customers like the business is retarded and does not know how to enter a proper address. AND it could mess up citations. So ya, just kinda sucks!

Linda, your advice conflicts with Google Places quality guidelines which states (emphasis added):

If you need to specify a mail box or suite number within your physical location, please list your physical address in Address Line 1, and put your mail box or suite number in Address Line 2.

I don't know if this is new content like the GMM article, as Places doesn't date when their Guidelines change. I would advise against placing Suite #s in Line 1 as it is against the Guideline and would corrupt the street number or cause the suite number to drop completely. I suspect that Line 2 is directly mapped to the Address Line in GMM.

It will be nice when Google formats the Suite # to show up after the Street Name in Maps. I'm sure they'll get around to it...

 

[Linda Buquet]

Sorry Andrew, maybe I wasn't clear.

I was not saying put suite in line 1. I know the guidelines say line 2 and that's what I ALWAYS advise doing when create a new listing.

I was warning that if it's ALREADY wrong, need to be aware that editing it can cause problems. It's a double edged sword and needs to be carefully weighed. I've seen folks in the G forum say "all I did was move suite from line 1 to line 2 and it either deleted all my reviews, or killed my ranking" or sometimes both. So meant to just warn him that changing an existing listing can have unwanted consequences.

On the other hand leaving suite on line 1 can drop you into the ocean off the coast of Africa too.
So... tricky. Sort of can be damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

But again on new listings, def do it right and put suite on line 2.

On existing listings if it's wrong, I normally say IF they have a ton of reviews and IF the listing does not appear broken (ie in the ocean) possibly it's best not to rock the boat and edit it. Good chance that's the way GOOGLE scraped and created it years ago before line 2 ever became an issue. All the really mature older listings I see all had suite on line 1.

Sorry should have explained better, but carpal hurts and didn't feel like typing all that detail to explain, but guess I needed to.

 

[Mauibob]

I refer to the address experts when there is any confusion with a business address, the USPS. If you go to USPS Look Up and type in the address, the post office will give you the proper mailing address for delivery. I have to believe that they are the go-to-guys when it comes to address formats.

 

[Andrew Sawyer]

I refer to the address experts when there is any confusion with a business address, the USPS. If you go to USPS Look Up and type in the address, the post office will give you the proper mailing address for delivery. I have to believe that they are the go-to-guys when it comes to address formats.

Mauibob, you're correct that USPS has the monopoly definative word on mailing addresses, however Google uses physical addresses. Most of the time the addresses are the same, however in the case of my mom this isn't true. Also the USPS like to abbreviate for space constraints, Google doesn't for data capturing/rentention. I have used USPS lookup for research purposes when mapping in Google, its a great authority on addressing data. It just not the definative word on physical addresses, local municipalities are as they set them and inform the USPS on all new/changed physical addresses in virtually all of the US.

 

[Mauibob]

Hi Andrew: I was not aware of this. Thank you.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yes Andrew is right.

In my Advanced G+L training I teach using that USPS tool as one of many different research points BUT then you need to understand how to weigh it all and decide if a NAP change is in the client's best interest. (Any change to NAP can lose reviews or ranking.)

USPS often directly conflicts with the way Google likes addresses formatted.

For example USPS often or maybe always abbreviates Suite as Ste. That's why often you'll see a majority of citations that list as Ste.

But IMO Google hates Ste and never uses it. I have yet to see a Google scraped address with Ste listed, even if that's what the great majority of citations show.

So again, USPS is just one little piece of the puzzle.

I just posted more detailed insights about minor NAP changes and the dangers here:
http://localsearchforum.catalystema...out-changing-address-business-name-local.html

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hopefully this is still relevant to where this thread is at (I didn't read the whole thing).

But, just wanted to drop a quote that I had noted down from Local University in NYC last year, from Joel Headley.

In regards to Suite vs STE...etc - "Google does it's best to see them as the same"

Pretty obvious stuff, but it's always nice to hear it from Google.