GMB 1 listing for store , multiple additional listings for outside sales reps

[lkbackus]

I am working with a business that has setup their google my business as:

1 main GMB for store location with its physical address and unique phone - ie business name "ABC Lumber"

1 GMB account for the business name followed by the city name ie. "ABC Lumber Santa Monica" with an address in Santa Monica and different phone than the store location GMB Account  but points to same website.

Another GMB account for called. "ABC Lumber Redondo Beach" with an address and same phone as the Santa Monica GMB account but points to same website.

So basically there is a main account which is the store, and then the sales reps want to create multiple GMB accounts of their own that are service area only accounts.

Do you see a problem with this?

[MiriamEllis]

Hey There,

Thanks for bringing this to the community for feedback.

I'd like to ask a couple of questions so that I'm sure I'm seeing this correctly.

1. How many physical locations does this lumber store have - just one in Santa Monica, or are you saying it has 2 or 3 different actual stores that serve customers face-to-face?

2. You are mentioning "GMB accounts" and I want to clarify: do you mean accounts, as in Google accounts used to log into things, are do you mean GMB listings, as in the listings that show to the public when you search for something?

3. Related to question 2, is the sales rep talking about creating accounts or creating GMB listings?

4. Related to question 3, if the sales rep is, in fact, talking about creating listings, are you saying they want to create listings covering service cities but not cities where the store has a physical location?

If you can number your answers to match my queries, I should be able to respond much more accurately. Thank you!

[lkbackus]

Thanks for the questions!

Question 1: There is 1 physical location.

Question 2: There are 2 google accounts

1 google account has the google my business listing for the actual store location. Business called ABC Lumber

1 other google account has 2 google my business listings. This is where they named the business with the city name ie ABC Lumber Redondo Beach and ABC Lumber Santa Monica

Question 3:  yes they want to (and have)  create listings covering service cities but not cities where the store has a physical location. These cities correlate to their sales territories.

[MiriamEllis]

Really helpful answers, thanks!

Okay, so what this business is eligible for is a single listing, representing their single physical location, and this should be located in a single account, although you can give multiple managers access to that account, if necessary.

Right now, having multiple listings for a single location is a violation of these guidelines and could get the company into trouble for spamming: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en-GB

To create further ineligible listings for service cities where they lack a physical location would also violate Google's guidelines and further heighten the risk of penalties.

To resolve this, the business either needs to ask Google to help them merge the superfluous listings into the main, eligible listing, or if the details of the listings don't match because a fake address has been used, take steps to report that the business never existed there (see article, below to determine the right course of action). That main listing must accurately list the name of the business as its title (with no city names or other keyword modifiers) and should accurately represent the physical address and phone number of the physical business.

Recommended reading: https://moz.com/blog/delete-gmb-listing

I'm so glad you asked about this, and hopefully you can get this company back on a good track with how they're marketing their business. Please, let me know if you have any further questions.