Competitor with 4 listings at same address

[E_F]

Hi there.

I went to www.google.it and did a search for "Scuola di inglese a Miami" (English school in Miami)

The result I got was that one Company (Kaplan International) ranked with several listings at the same address and with different languages. I read several time that you are only allowed to have one listing pr address. How is this possible? Will they eventually get merged or penalized?

Best regards

maps?q=scuola+di+inglese+a+miami&ie=UTF-8&ei=psJ0U5DFAcnXOdbIgNgG&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ

[WilliamKammer]

They would likely get merged or penalized eventually. You can speed up the process by reporting the additional listings as duplicates. There is a place to flag them on their places page. Google is pretty good about looking into those things within a week or two.

[MiriamEllis]

Good Afternoon,

That's an interesting situation you've highlighted! You are quite correct that Google only allows one listing per physical location, but things get a bit fuzzy when it comes to multi-language listings. The first time I ran into this scenario was in about 2009, in which Mike Blumenthal published this article quoting Google's stance on how a business could have multi-language listings without creating multiple listings (http://blumenthals.com/blog/2009/08/10/local-business-center-same-listing-in-multiple-languages-is-ok/).

However, the current Google Places for Business setup does not allow for multiple languages. Google's stand on this is that you're supposed to pick a single language and create a single listing in it. See this:

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/language/business/Ok7wphTl6hQ/v8pfqDRtj2gJ

Despite this, businesses have old multi-language listings from former times and are also creating mutiple language listings by using different accounts (which was once recommended as a best practice).

The exact guideline, currently, is found here:

https://support.google.com/places/answer/142906?hl=en

... and reads:

"In countries where more than one language is spoken, choose a primary language that you want the listing to be displayed in. Even if users have their browsers set to another language, they'll still be able to find your business on Maps."

So, according to Google, you should only have one language and one listing, but as we can see from your example, people are getting around this. You could try to report your competitor, but it may not be worth it.

What I actually find most interesting about your example is the fact that Google is surfacing those 3 same listings for your search term, hinting to me that Google may be confusing your search intent with a branded search that matches the titles of your competitor's Google+ Local pages. The titles on those pages don't look quite right to me.

So, bottom line ... yes, it's supposed to be just one listing, but I suspect this whole situation is a big mess given Google's guidelines that don't meet the real-world situation terribly well, coupled with their failure to sometimes police their own product. Hope these thoughts are helpful.