Street Address Not Appearing on Business Google+ Page

[Kingalan1]

I run a local business in New York City, a commercial real estate brokerage.

My firm has both a web site and Google+ accounts, one Google+ account for me personally and a Google+ account for my business.

Under address my Google+ account is showing New York, NY. It is not showing a street address.

Similiarly when my business name is entered in the Google search bar, my web site is the first result, but under address (directly to the right of a black dot with a grey circle around it) "New York, NY" with the phone number beneath it appears. No sign of my street address.

My business is registered under Google Places and we have entered the correct street address.

Any ideas on how I can get Google to display our street address? This is obviously very, very detrimental for local SEO.

Thanks,
Alan

[Olaf]

Did you check your listings at other local listing sites? Google possibly would like to check your NAP information at other local listings. You can use getlisted.org. Please make sure you accurately implement name, address and phone number of your business in all the local directories. And more importantly, make sure that all the citations have your name, address and phone number listed in exactly the same way across all the directories (including your own website).

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Alan

We have some experience with this happening and have seen a couple of causes.

1. It was just a short running issue after some changes were made and it resolved itself after a couple of weeks.

2. It was a bigger problem due to a lack of understanding of the actual address.

#1 is self explanatory but in case #2 we have seen this where the client was in a new address or some kind of business park or location where the full address is not always in Google maps (gated business park or some such). We have also seen it in new business complexes - basically, addresses Google is not 100% sure on.

After much painful effort we have found a way to test and this may be a worthwhile process to go through to determine if Google has a problem with the address for your business.

1. Google the zip code and address and see how it is formated (exactly) in Google / Google maps and make a note of this
2. Google around some other local businesses and find some that are as close as possible and have the standard red map marker and address in Google search when you search for their business / brand name
3. Format your address exactly as Google returns it and ideally as other successful businesses
4. Log into the places for business page manager
5. View the dashboard for the business and click on edit the address
6. Update the address so it matches the format Google is using and save the changes

For a few clients we have had with this problem this has resolved the issue - not overnight but if Google likes the address and it matches what they return for the zip / postcode and for other local businesses who are not having this problem you are a lot closer to resolving this.

Often when this is the case (and for a lot of other address problems) if we log into the places control panel, click to edit the address and then try to save it (without making any chances) Google will throw an error stating it does not understand the address. So, clearly, there is an address problem. You can try this yourself but I would still follow the process above either way but it can provide some further confirmation that they had a problem with your address and/or formatting.

Obviously, if your NAP across all major and minor citation sources uses other variations on this address you are going to have to resolve that as well and you are going to have to do a full citation audit and then look to resolve those issues.

Step 1 - get your address perfect on your local listing
Step 2 - ensure your NAP is consistent across all citation sources (start with the big ones first)

I wrote an article about NAP consistency which also has a guide covering how to do a citation audit here:
http://www.bowlerhat.co.uk/blog/noise-trust-nap-consistency/

Hopefully this will resolve your issues. The address may fix quickly and in our experience you may see a visibility bump almost instantly (days) or in some cases in can take months (we have seen up to 6 for address problems to fully resolve).

Hope that helps! 
Marcus

[Kingalan1]

Hi Marcus:

Great post!!

I logged into Google Places for Business. Noticed that under Services Areas and Location Settings I had "Do not show my business address on my Maps listings" checked.

I unchecked it. Now on Google places my location shows on the map.

Googling my company name and going to my company Google+ page and the address still does not show up. Is there something I have to change there to get it to show? Or is it a question of Google taking some time to reintegrate address info? Is there anything I can do to expedite the process?

Thanks,
Alan

[Kingalan1]

Hi Marcus (or anyone in the MOZ community):

Further complicating my effort to get my street address listed on Google+, I share the same suite with another real estate broker.

There are two companies share the same suite number, street number, city, state and zip code. The other broker recently set up a very basic web site and is listed on Google+ as well as several other local directories.

How would Google deal with two very similiar businesses sharing the same suite. While I have a much more elaborate website established in 2007, my colleague is listed in more local online business directories.

Could these factors be contributing to not having a street address listed on Google+?

Thanks,
Alan

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Alan

Possibly. As you have likely noticed, there are so many potential factors here it always requires some experimentation.

To answer a few of your points:

1. I don't see why you can't have two businesses at one address as long as that is totally legit and they have different names and phone numbers.

2. Look at how your neighbour has his address configured and make sure yours matches that format (if that is working) and that matches how that is laid out in Google maps etc. Then, do a citation audit and make sure you look at any historic variations in your name, address and phone number and update those lisitings. The link in my original post above outlines a structured way to approach this.

3. Will Google take time to show the address - yep, for sure. They may even show it, then not show it again, and then show it again. It's choppy waters in the local ecosystem but if you are sure you have everything correct and have audited external listings then just wait it out a while (2 weeks) and it should be okay.

Hope that helps!

Marcus