Google requires that businesses that serve there customers at their customers' locations must hide its address. However, this causes an notice in Moz Local advising that the Google listing is inconsistent. Is that something to just ignore?

[freetours]

I run a walking tour company that operates from a virtual office.  We run tours are set locations outside the office.  Because of this, Google requires that we hide our exact location.  However, Moz Local is warning us that "incomplete listings can negatively impact your ability to rank well in search engine results".

Most listings won't allow you to hide an exact address.  Do the search engines understand this and therefore we won't get penalized?

Thank you.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Stephen!

Good topic. You are quite correct that Google requires companies without a staffed physical office to hide their addresses. And, in a level playing field in which all of your competitors are also hiding their addresses, there would be no negative impact. However, if some of your competitors do have staffed physical offices, it is believe by some Local SEOs that you may be at some disadvantage in not having one yourself. It's important to stress that this is a theory, not a statement issued by Google. There is likely some truth in it, though.

Now, that being said, Moz Local accepts listings with hidden addresses, but if we are marking a hidden address as inconsistent, this might be worth taking up with the Help Team to discover if it's normal for the dashboard to treat a hidden address this way. It could be a question that the Help Team will need to take up with Engineering. You can contact the Help Team here: https://moz.com/help/contact

I hope this is helpful!

[freetours]

Thank you Miriam.  I did just that.

[bruteboxmoving]

I had the same question, thanks for making Moz aware.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Adam,

I want to make sure you received the answer I gave to Stephen via the Help Desk as well. Basically, right now, yes, Moz Local in marking hidden Google+ Local addresses as inconsistent and this is negatively impacting the Moz Local listing score, but coincidentally, this is something our Engineers are working on to change. I don't have an ETA, but it is our plan to stop marking these as inconsistent in the near future, and this will remove any negative impact on the listing score. Hope this helps!