{"id":5093,"date":"2009-11-03T10:03:18","date_gmt":"2009-11-03T14:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=5093"},"modified":"2010-11-20T14:16:45","modified_gmt":"2010-11-20T18:16:45","slug":"google-maps-updates-business-listing-guidelines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/03\/google-maps-updates-business-listing-guidelines\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Maps Updates Business Listing Guidelines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Barry at SEORoundtable has just <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seroundtable.com\/archives\/021062.html\">reported<\/a> that Google Maps has just updated the <a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/support\/bin\/answer.py?hl=en&amp;answer=107528\">Business Listing Guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the new Guidelines:<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Arial;\"><strong>Business Listing Quality Guidelines<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial; color: #000ad0; min-height: 15.0px;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial; min-height: 15.0px;\">\n<p style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\"><strong>Local Business Center Guidelines<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">Business Listings in Local Business Center must have correct information about physical, local businesses, as they appear in the real world. Google reserves the right to suspend access to Local Business Center or to other Google Services to individuals or businesses violating these guidelines.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\"><strong>Ownership<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul style=\"list-style-type: disc;\">\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">Only business owners or authorized representatives may claim their business listings on Google Maps.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial; min-height: 15.0px;\">\n<p style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\"><strong>Business Name<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul style=\"list-style-type: disc;\">\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">The business name on Google Maps must be your full legal business name.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">Do not attempt to manipulate search results by adding extraneous keywords or a description of your business into the business name.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">Do not include phone numbers or URLs in the business name.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\"><strong>Physical Location<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul style=\"list-style-type: disc;\">\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">Do not create listings at locations where the business does not physically exist.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">PO Boxes do not count as physical locations.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">Do not create more than one listing for each business location, either in a single account or multiple accounts.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">Businesses that operate in a service area as opposed to a single location should not create a listing for every city they service. Service area businesses should create one listing for the central office of the business only.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">Businesses with special services, such as law firms and doctors, should not create multiple listings to cover all of their specialties.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">The precise address for the business must be provided in place of broad city names or cross-streets.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">A property for rent is not considered a place of business. Please create one listing for the central office that processes the rentals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\"><strong>URL &amp; Phone<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul style=\"list-style-type: disc;\">\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location as directly as possible. For example, you should provide an individual location phone number in place of a call center.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">Provide one URL that best identifies your individual business location.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">Do not provide phone numbers or URLs that redirect or &#8216;refer&#8217; users to other landing pages or phone numbers other than those of the actual business.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\"><strong>Custom Attributes &amp; Description<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul style=\"list-style-type: disc;\">\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">Use the description and custom attribute fields to include additional information about your listing. This type of content should never appear in your business&#8217;s title, address or category fields.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">Please see <a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/support\/bin\/static.py?page=guide.cs&amp;guide=21029&amp;topic=21032\"><span style=\"color: #000ad0; text-decoration: underline;\">this page<\/span><\/a> of the LBC User Guide for examples of acceptable custom attributes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\"><strong>Best Practices<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul style=\"list-style-type: disc;\">\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">Use a shared, business email account, if multiple users will be updating your business listing.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">If possible, use an email account with a domain that matches your business URL. For example, if your business website is www.giraffetoys.com, a matching email address would be you@giraffetoys.com.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\"><strong>Contact Us<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul style=\"list-style-type: disc;\">\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial; color: #561a8d;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/support\/bin\/request.py?contact_type=maps_spam\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Report Spam on Maps<\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\"><span style=\"color: #000ad0;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/support\/bin\/request.py?hl=en&amp;contact_type=reinclusion\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Request Reinclusion<\/span><\/a><\/span> if your Local Business Center account has been suspended.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial; color: #000ad0;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/support\/bin\/request.py?hl=en&amp;contact_type=feeds_verify\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Request Verification for your bulk upload<\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">Post in our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/support\/forum\/p\/maps?hl=en\"><span style=\"color: #561a8d; text-decoration: underline;\">Help Forum<\/span><\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial;\">For more information about the Local Business Center, please visit the <a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/support\/bin\/static.py?hl=en&amp;page=guide.cs&amp;guide=21029\"><span style=\"color: #000ad0; text-decoration: underline;\">Local Business Center user guide<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barry at SEORoundtable has just reported that Google Maps has just updated the Business Listing Guidelines. Here are the new Guidelines: Business Listing Quality Guidelines Local Business Center Guidelines Business Listings in Local Business Center must have correct information about physical, local businesses, as they appear in the real world. Google reserves the right to &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google-maps-google-local","category-google-quality-guidelines"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093","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=5093"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8150,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093\/revisions\/8150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}