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Yes, I was able to contact Google Support via Google My Business. They somehow fixed it on their end. However, I still see the same problem with similar searches. For example Google (Pot Stores Tacoma Wa), and then Google (Pot Store Tacoma WA). On the first search, only three businesses show, on the second search ALL the businesses show. I am googling from out of state so distance and centroid shouldn't affect the SERPS>

Hi PrimeSource1! Thanks for asking a good and important question. Because your business model is solely digital, you would not qualify for Google My Business optimization, with or without an office. Google's guidelines not only exclude the use of virtual offices, but they also prohibit participation by brands that don't meet face-to-face with their customers. So, in this case, it sounds like your funding will be better invested in organic SEO, PPC and Social rather than local SEO. When a business does have face-to-face interactions with its customers, but doesn't have a dedicated physical address, two alternatives to explore are: Using your home address for a single location (not using a bunch of home addresses for multiple locations, though) In some cases, the use of co-working spaces. But, with a digital-only model like yours, these aren't helpful. Rather, if you're hoping to gain a presence in particular regions of the country, you'll need to do so with content, linkbuilding, on-page optimization, social outreach, PR, and, likely, paid advertising. Hope this helps!

Bulk would be good if you did not have all the problems you currently have. The big flag I see is having listings out there with the wrong address #1 and also having an address showing when they are SAB's. I would tackle them one by one since you clearly have unique issues with each profile. I would budget about 2 hours of time for each, and work with Twitter support to get things cleared up (not phone support, unless they are USA based)

Hey there. I'm Darren Shaw, the founder of Whitespark. I do most of the planning and design of features for our software. I think I'm a decently seasoned local SEO, but I'm embarrassed to say that I hadn't considered what you are saying in this post. You're absolutely right that we should report ranking movements in the way you propose, and I will get my dev team working on it right away. We'll have this change implemented within the next couple of weeks. Thank you for the excellent suggestion! You can contact me anytime at darren@whitespark.ca if you have any other thoughts, questions, or suggestions.

Hi there! Can you expand on what you mean by Knowledge graph box? Thanks! John

We haven't but we will definitely try that!

Dear Sabar-din, Hopefully, the article Hannah linked to will answer your question, but if not, please let us know and please explain why you are trying to remove the listing and what precise steps you've taken so far.

Thanks so much Miriam, helpful as always! Do you recommend that the website links on the practitioner's citation point to the homepage of the site, or should they point to the doctor's biography page on the site? When you mention automation, do you have any particular service in mind? We happily use Moz Local for the main office location, is it also well-suited to manage practitioners' listings? Maybe they need to be created as separate locations?

Here is the answer that I've received: "Hi At the moment the work round is to set as open for 1 minute at 2am on Monday morning. It worked for a top contributor but not for Nathan who tried it. I think it could be a bug affecting older GmB entries? Its been known about for a long time. Andrew."

Thank you, I had done a research but I hadn't found this subject. Thank you

Hi Kevin, Very sound questions. Google's way of dealing with this is the permanently closed label. There are businesses all around me that shuttered years ago and are still searchable, but bear this label. So, at least for the present, this is what they feel is an adequate solution to the fact that businesses close. Google does make some efforts to hide permanently closed listings, but they are still discoverable if a user searches for the name + the old location. What can be a problem is when businesses don't actually close, but simply move from an old location to a new one. When they do this, there are steps they should take to avoid having their old location labeled as "closed" because some studies have indicated that this can harm their future rankings at the new location if they continue to use the same phone number as was used at the old location, as well as signalling to customers that the company may have gone out of business. If you own retail properties with tenants who move rather than closing, a nice thing to do for them would be to teach them how handle GMB so that they don't end up with that "permanently closed" listing. I outline how to do this in the "permanently closed" section of this blog post: https://moz.com/blog/delete-gmb-listing Might be something to bookmark for future reference!

Yeah, that could make sense! I haven't been able to replicate it so definitely a weird example. Thanks!

Thanks Roman, I will begin using the on page grader for our local pages.

Thank you!

Hi Ben, You're welcome! Good follow-up question. If your company (XYZ) places patients in facilities you don't own (Sunshine), then you aren't authorized to create GMB listings for Sunshine. Nor would any other service that places patients in those facilities. Sunshine would need to market themselves as the owner of that location. Hope that makes sense.

Hi Ben, Please let me know if you have any more questions or if I did not your and your satisfaction. Respectfully, Tom

Hey Jacob! Is there any way you can email me the actual example? My email is my first name @moz.com. Feel free to shoot me the actual screenshot and the actual language of the searches you are doing. Happy to take a look.

Hey Steve, I first learned about Pointy from the American Independent Business Alliance a few months ago, and wrote a bit about it here: https://moz.com/blog/local-seos-guide-to-buy-local *See the section subtitled "Digitize Inventory Easily". It's early days yet, but the fact that founder of WordPress and co-founder of Google Maps are Pointy's angel investors makes me think it could go far. While I've yet to hold a Pointy device in my own hands, the potential for it to enable smaller local businesses to get their inventory onto the web so easily is incredibly appealing. If anyone is actually using Pointy, I hope you'll contribute to this thread!

Hi yamayamax, Did you see Miriam's response to your question? Please let us know if that helped answer your question or not. Thanks so much! Christy