There are several FAQs for managing multiple businesses at the same address on Google My Business. These address common concerns like differentiating individual listings, handling shared phone numbers, and specifying distinct business hours. Each business needs to maintain unique, accurate information to avoid confusion and ensure a clear online presence, aiding in better search visibility and customer understanding in local search results.
If you have multiple businesses at the same address, you may be wondering how you create Google My Business listing (now called Google Business Profile). You may also wonder how many listings you’re eligible for if you are legitimately running more than one business at your location.
You may be wondering about what determines eligibility and what penalties you may incur if you make a mistake as well as how to name your businesses at the same address.
You’ll find a wide variety of frequently asked questions surrounding this topic in local SEO forums all over the web every year. The guidelines for representing your business on Google contain most of the answers you’re looking for about complicated businesses. Still, sometimes they can err on the side of too little detail, thus creating confusion.
To help demystify the process, we will answer some of the most common frequently asked questions that business owners and marketers deal with.
Question: I have more than one business at the same address. Can I have more than one Google my business listing?
Answer: Yes, But…
To have more than one Google my business listing at the same address, you must be legitimately operating multiple legally distinct businesses. It’s not all that uncommon for more than one business to be located at a shared address but you need to keep reading for more provisions and details.
Question: Are my multiple businesses located at the same address distinct enough to be eligible for separate GMB listings?
Answer: Look at Your Business Structure
If each brick and mortar business you operate is registered separately with the appropriate state and federal agencies, and has its own unique tax ID, which you file separate taxes and meet face-to-face with customers with a unique phone number, then it is generally eligible for a distinct GMB listing. But you want to keep reading for more information.
Question: Do suite numbers help convince Google that I have two locations so I can have multiple GMB listings?
Answer: No, Google does not pay attention to suite numbers, whether they are legitimate or created fictitiously.
Don’t waste time attempting to make a single location appear to be multiple locations by assigning different suite numbers to the entities in hopes that you will qualify for multiple listings.
Question: What makes me ineligible for more than one GMB listing at the same address?
Answer: if your businesses are not legally registered as distinct entities, or if you do not have unique phone numbers for them, you cannot list them separately.
Suppose your businesses are simply representative of different product lines or services under a single umbrella-like a handyman who repairs both air conditioners and water heaters. In that case, you are not eligible for separate listings. You should not list multiple businesses at virtual offices, mailboxes at remote locations, or any location you do not have the authority to represent.
Question: Is there a penalty for listing multiple ineligible businesses at the same address?
Answer: You may be penalized. Google could issue a hard suspension on one or more of your listings at any time.
If you get a hard suspension, it means that Google has removed your listing and its associated reviews. This could affect your search engine rankings.
Question: Can service-area businesses list multiple businesses at the same address?
Answer: Historically, Google has treated service area businesses differently than brick-and-mortar businesses.
There is no official guideline that forbids listing multiple service area businesses, such as blacksmiths and plumbers at the same location, it is not considered industry best practice. Google appears to be more active in issuing suspensions to service area businesses in this situation, even if the businesses are distinct and legitimate. Because of this, it’s better not to co-locate service area businesses.
Question: What if I work out of a Co-Working Space?
Answer: If your business has a direct unique phone number answered by you and you are staffing the co-working space with your own staff at your listed hours, then yes you are eligible for a GMB listing.
However, suppose there are any other businesses at the shared location in your categories or businesses that are competing for the same search terms. In that case, it is likely that you or your competitors will be filtered out of the mapping product because of the shared elements.
Question: How many listings can I have if there are multiple seasonal businesses at my address?
Answer: If your business hosts an organic fruit stand in the summer and a Christmas tree farm in the winter, you must closely follow Google’s requirements for seasonal businesses.
In order for each entity to qualify for its own listing, it must have year-round signage and set and then remove its hours at the opening and closing of Its season. Each entity needs to have a distinct name, phone number, and Google categories.
Question: How Should I Name My Businesses on Multiple GMB Listings?
Answer: To decrease the risk of filtering or penalties, co-located businesses have to pay attention to the allowed naming conventions.
Questions about this typically fall into one of these categories:
If one business is inside another as in the case of a restaurant located inside a Walmart, the Google My Business names should be “Subway” and “Walmart” rather than “Subway in Walmart”.
Is Prague located Brands such as a Taco Bell in Dunkin Donuts share the same location, they do not need to combine their brand names for the listing. Alternatively, they should create a single listing with just one of the brand names, or if the brands operate independently, a unique listing for each separate brand.
If multiple listings reflect eligible departments within a business such as the sales and parts department of a Ford dealership, then it’s correct to name the listings for sale department and Ford parts department. No penalty should result from the shared branding elements as long as the different departments out of distinct words in their names, distinct phone numbers, and distinct categories.
If your brand sells another brand’s products don’t include the branding of the product being sold in the Google My Business name. However, Google says that if a business location is an authorized and fully dedicated seller of the brand’s product or service, such as a franchisee, you may use the underlying brand name when creating the listing.
If you are starting out with several new businesses at the same location, it is a best practice to keep their names distinct. For instance, a person operating a Pottery Studio and a pet grooming business out of the same building can reduce the chance of filters, penalties, and other problems, by avoiding Name-O and conventions like Sunshine Pottery and Sunshine Pet Grooming at the same location.
Question: Is it possible to create separate listings for events, classes, or meetings that share a location?
Answer: The guidelines on this topic don’t provide definition. Google says that you should not create listings for locations that you do not own or have the authority to represent.
Even if you do own the building, the guidelines can create confusion. For instance, a college can create a separate listing for different departments on campus, but should not create a listing for each class being offered even if the owners of the college do have the authority to represent it.
Let’s say a yoga instructor teaches at three different locations. If the building owners give the instructor permission to list themselves at the locations along with other instructors, the guidelines then appear to allow creating multiple listings of this nature. However, this kind of activity could be perceived as spam and filter it out because of the shared elements with other yoga classes at a location and therefore could end up competing with the building’s own listing.
Since the guidelines are not clear here, there is a bit of leeway in this area. Use your discretion in creating listings and view them as experimental in the event that Google should remove them at some point in the future.
If you have any questions that I haven’t covered here, be sure to ask them in the comments.
We have a real estate brokerage of about 140 agents and two office locations. Each of our agents want to have their own GMB page and they are using our office location addresses. This is proving very difficult for our brokerage GMB pages because we are in constant competition with them. What I’m trying to find out is a good alternative for my agents to have GMB pages and not use our office addresses. they don’t want to use their home addresses because they want to preserve their privacy.
Hi Adrianne,
Google allows you to create listings using your home address, which you can hide in exchange for selecting your service area.
This might allow your team to manage their own listings while protecting their privacy. Hope this helps. If you’d like to chat about this, please let me know.
I own a salon and a hairstylist is doing the same thing. She is using a separate business name and using my address. She dies hair at the salon but does not own a business she is an independent contractor.
Hi Anne,
Claim your Google Business Profile, trigger the post-card verification, and check the mail for that location. You should be able to re-claim your Salon through verification.
If you need help, please let us know.
The example of real estate agents using the office address can be fixed. They need to nominate their home address to set up the GMB but have the option to then hide their home address from the public. They can tthen select the suburbs/locality areas they want enquiries from. I would suggest they then set up a web page mentioning the same suburbs. I manage multiple GMBs and this has worked with plenty of success.
Hey Damon,
Thanks for reading and adding this helpful comment. Businesses do have the option to register and hide their personal address in light of the option to select “service area” instead of physical location, which we’ve seen work very well for for certain home services companies operating from their home office.
Thanks again for commenting!
Interesting post thanks for the info. We are a new business and one venture we are doing is setting up a brand dedicated to RV service and modifications that will be based (and in partnership) with the truck repair business that owns the site where we would also list on Google. This new brand will be marketed purely as an RV business, sales, service, repair, storage, customisation and not a general car/truck mechanical repair service like the google listing currently. The existing business owns their location, has great reviews and worried about the causing a problem for the existing car/ truck listing on Google.
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated?
Hey Geoff,
This is a difficult issue to tackle, but two ideas come to mind: You can either claim a different suite in the building (if possible), or create a Google Business Profile at your residential address and hide your address for privacy concerns – Google allows home-based businesses to hide their location in exchange for a “service area.” This is particularly helpful for many small business owners who don’t have an office and don’t want to share their home-office address with the public. Another option: Would your partner be open to sharing their listing with you through your partnership (adding your services to their listing)?
If Google discovers two businesses share the same address, one or the other listing will be suspended.
Please feel free to reach out if you’d like to chat – there’s another workaround we might be able to help you with, but it requires a discussion.
Hey Eric,
Thanks for your detailed reply and the other ones you’ve posted. We are in the process of getting the site built and I think if we can use another location with the address hidden then this will do the same job without affecting the existing business listing. There are lots of business buildings nearby maybe we can reach an agreement with an owner.
Will be in touch if get stuck, thanks again for your advice.
Happy to help, Geoff. Have a great weekend!
Hi Eric
I am an audiologist but my practice is based in an optometrists store. the optometry store has a google map listing. I would like to have a map listing for my business as its a separate legal entity from the optometry. both the optometry and audiology businesses have different owners but we share a premise and phone lines. Can i have a different google map listing at the same address?
If I have a large warehouse that I can split into separate businesses with a wall, how would I list the addresses on GMB? Ex. if i owned a virtual mailbox, screen printing and clothing brand, can they exist in the same building using the same address?
This is great information! Not sure if it addresses my situation or not, so here it is. We have our current location, which is making a transitionary move to a new location, so I cannot simply change the address on the current listing since different storefronts will be operating at each location for a period of time. The new location has two buildings, one will be the storefronts and the other is distribution. If I create the listing with Distribution Center added at the end, and assign it to Building B, will I have a conflict when I go to change the address of the current listing? So it would be the same company name, 1 listing just the company name and the other would be company name distribution center. The street address is the same, but we can assign a different phone number for each listing. Any insights would be much appreciated.
Hi Eric
I have 3 separate businesses that I run from home.
1. A Registered Physio practice in the mornings (own door and waiting room)
2. An Online and in-house Islamic school in the afternoons. ( same door and room space, but can be changed to its own separate door and space)
3. An Art Walk one Weekend a month on the outside back yard area (separate entry)
I’m paying Tax on all of them but combined on my one tax number, but the accounting of each income and expenses is separated, between the 3.
So I have separate emails for these accounts businesses and separate websites and IG profiles, and phone numbers.
Do I qualify for the GMB?
Many Thanks
Faatima
I have medical equipment dept that is within my pharmacy. I want to separate it out with a new name. The current name of the business is hampering its growth. The location will remain the same, the new entity will have a new phone number. The new entity however will not have its own tax id or be registered. Can i still have on google two bussiness witht he same address?
What about DBAs? My husband and I have a shared LLC and use a virtual address and I have my own company at our real physical address. He wants to add a new venture…will Google allow it at the same virtual address? Or the same real physical one? Could we use another virtual address with different suite number at the same site? Thanks in advance!
Hello,
My partner and I bought a small property that includes guest rooms (an inn), bike rental, and ice cream shop. Our GMB profile won’t allow us to set hours – I believe this is because our primary service is an inn – which is open 24 hours a day. I started to create another business listing so we could post our hours for bike rentals, and saw that we can only do this if we have a separate legal entity, which we do not. However, it sounds like operations like car dealerships CAN have separate listings for separate departments. Do you have suggestions for how to address this with our business? Ideally we would want to list hours for our ice cream shop and bicycle services. Thanks!
I have a craft business, that I put my products into a store where multiple other crafters sell their items as well. The person running the store retired and I took over the store. I had already created a Google business page for myself, and made the address the store where I sold my stuff. Now that I’m running the store I want to create a page for it because it has its own following already, but it will be the same address. I have a tax id for my personal business and all transactions go through my square account, the store is of a different name than my business, but no transactions go through the store name. It’s just the location. Can I make a separate business page or will I get flagged from Google?
Hello, We also have a real estate company all located at one address with 75-100 agents all trying to set up their GMB. The issue is that we need the address to show for all so clients can reach them. We keep getting suspended before we even start. Any direction and steps to make this easier is greatly appreciated.
Hi Eric, I’m a massage therapist renting a room owned by a salon. The salon has the next door address ( it’s attached). I will be sharing the room with an esthetician, we have separated businesses but will have the same address. Can we each have our own listing? If so how do we go about doing this ?