The importance of proper formatting

[James Watt]

I know most of us have seen whitespark's A-OK NAP variations post, and it's great to know that some amount of variation in NAP is perfectly fine.

I've seen two posts on the GMB forum today though with ranking issues stemming (likely at least in part) from suite formatting inconsistencies. Here's one of them.

Anyone else have personal experience with dealing with ranking problems stemming from improper (or inconsistent) address formatting? This one's interesting to me, since it's not inconsistent... it's listed consistently most places. But in their map maker history, it shows it shuffling back and forth something like 3 times. Google really seems to want it as #5B instead of 5B-.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Durned suite #s are always such a pain.

Interesting 2 similar cases came up today. Let us know if you spot a growing trend James.

 

[JoyHawkins]

I don't believe Google even pays attention to suite numbers at all. They are helpful for users to find the right office but I don't think they factor into NAP consistency at all. I wasn't really clear from reading that post what the user's issue really is (other than he wants a place label).

I think it's possible that place labels have lots of factors attached that you can't really influence (like foot traffic or driving direction requests). I always tell people not to worry about them since I haven't seen a connection between having a place label and showing up well on Google Search.

 

[James Watt]

What about the fact that Google automatically tried to correct the suite formatting 3 times? And the fact that the place label itself ended up in a really unusual format (5B- seems like a strange way to start an address line). I'll keep an eye out, but good to know what you're experience tells you about this.

As for what the poster was interested in, at the time I was investigating, the listing wasn't showing up in the maps anywhere for Guelph dentists, but it likes like they're there now on page two.

I've been wondering for a while what it means when a local business listing flat out isn't showing in the maps results anywhere, even if you scroll through all the pages looking. What do you think when you encounter a listing like that? Those will often show up in the knowledge panel for their own name, or in the maps for a brand name search, but they'll be completely absent for anything else, even really related searches.

 

[JoyHawkins]

James,

I think based on the thread any "edits" you're seeing from "Google" was actually the business owner changing things in the dashboard.

I agree that when a listing is not showing up whatsover it's really mysterious. In the past I've found that this happens with the presence of a closed listing that is kind of suppressing the main one and also if the categories aren't right. However I've found a few examples where both of those didn't apply and I honestly couldn't figure out what the issue was.

 

[JustinB]

In the past I've found that this happens with the presence of a closed listing that is kind of suppressing the main one

If you don't mind me asking, how did you overcome that one?
When you say "suppress the main one" do you mean the new location citation was suppressed by the previous location citation or was it a previous business impacting a new business at that same location?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Justin,

I should have mentioned that both the cases I was thinking about for this were from 2014 so I can't 100% say if this still happens since Google has changed quite a bit about this. For one of the examples, it was for a dog trainer which I outlined in case #3 here.

I haven't had too many of these types of cases to solve recently but we deal with most closed listings currently by having them marked as moved.

 

[JustinB]

Appreciate the prompt reply Joy, I know Google has its glitchy moments, thought it was a curious occurrence which is why I asked.

 

[James Watt]

I've seen a few cases with a business not in the map results at all that didn't seem to fit either of those two possible reasons, but I wasn't sure what to make of them either. Next time one comes up maybe I'll post it and see what other people think. Thanks for sharing!