\n| \n Original Guidelines<\/strong><\/font>\n <\/p>\n<\/td>\n| \n<\/font>\n <\/td>\n | \nNew Guidlelines<\/strong><\/font>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n \n <\/td>\n | \nModified Guidelines<\/b><\/font>\n <\/td>\n | \n \n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| \nRepresent your business exactly as it appears in real life. The name on Google Maps should match the business name, as should the address, phone number and website.<\/font>\n <\/td>\n | \n \n <\/td>\n | \nRepresent your business exactly as it appears in the offline world<\/em>. The name on Google Maps should match the business name, as should the address, phone number and website.<\/font>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n <\/tr>\n| \nUse the description and custom attribute fields to include additional information about your listing. This type of content should never appear in your business’s title or address fields.<\/font>\n <\/td>\n | \n \n <\/td>\n | \nUse the description and custom attribute fields to include additional information about your listing. This type of content should never appear in your business’s title, address or category<\/em> fields.<\/font>\n <\/td>\n\n| \nList information that provides as direct a path to the business as you can. Given the choice, you may want to list individual location phone numbers over a central phone line, official website pages rather than a directory page, and as exact of an address as you can.<\/font>\n <\/td>\n | \n \n <\/td>\n | \nProvide information that best identifies your individual locations and provides users with the most direct path to your business. For example, you should<\/em> provide individual location phone numbers in place of central phone lines and the precise address for the business in place of broad city names or cross-streets.<\/em><\/font>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \nOnly include listings for businesses that you represent.<\/font>\n <\/td>\n | \n \n <\/td>\n | \nOnly enter listings for businesses that you own or are explicitly authorized to<\/em> represent.<\/font>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \nDon’t participate in any behavior with the intention or result of listing your business more times than it exists. Service area businesses, for example, should not create a listing for every town they service. Likewise, law firms or doctors should not create multiple listings to cover all of their specialties.<\/font>\n <\/td>\n | \n \n <\/td>\n | \nCreate only one listing for each physical location of your business. Do not create more than one listing for each business location, either in a single account or multiple accounts.<\/em> Service area businesses, for example, should not create a listing for every town they service. Likewise, law firms or doctors should not create multiple listings to cover all of their specialties.<\/font>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n \n <\/td>\n | \nNew<\/b><\/font>\n <\/td>\n | \n \n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| \n \n <\/td>\n | \n \n <\/td>\n | \nDo not attempt to manipulate search results by adding extraneous keywords into the title field, and do not include phone numbers or URLs in the title along with your proper business name.<\/font>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n \n <\/td>\n | \n \n <\/td>\n | \nWhen entering categories, use only those that directly describe your business. Do not submit related categories that do not define your business. For example, a taxi company might properly categorize itself as "Airport Transportation", but it would be inaccurate to also use the category \u201cAirport\u201d. Also, please use each category field to enter a single category. Do not list multiple categories or keywords in one field.<\/font>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n \n <\/td>\n | \n \n <\/td>\n | \nProvide the one URL that belongs to your business both in terms of the landing page and the displayed URL. Pages that redirect to another domain, or act as "click through" sites may lead to penalization.<\/font>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n \n <\/td>\n | \n \n <\/td>\n | \nUse the description and custom attribute fields to include additional information about your listing. This type of content should never appear in your business’s title, address or category fields.<\/font>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n In these new guidelines it appears that Google is making explict more cases of abuse. Obviously affiliate abuse and directories claiming of listings is targeted as well as category spam and title stuffing. It is unclear whether enforcement will be more proactive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Google updated the Maps Listing Guidelines earlier today. It is difficult to understand the differences without a direct comparison to the old guidelines. I have attempted to highlight the changes in italics: Original Guidelines New Guidlelines Modified Guidelines Represent your business exactly as it appears in real life. The name on Google Maps …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google-maps-google-local"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3382"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3407,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3382\/revisions\/3407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} | | | | | | | | | | |