I normally wouldn’t bother with a post like this if I didn’t receive the same SEO rankings email twice in the same day. The Comic Sans font amused me so here’s the email:
Comic Sans SEO
You can pretty much insert your own joke and punchline, but there’s nothing like a blind SEO email pitch written in Comic Sans.
Thank you SEO Website Results Team, I’ll pass this time around.
In the Google Maps world, it’s pretty-well known they’ve had Mapspam issues and at least now (arguably) tries to keep very strict guidelines including using your exact physical address, as is.
There are some marketers who suggest using multiple PO boxes in different cities for one single location. Google may frown on this as “people have used this to spam the local listings to get them closer to the city center”. Maybe the 0 of 2 folks who find this particular answer helpful are guilty?
Disclaimer – I don’t know who the user andyhugh is in this answer.
Google Maps Answer
Anyway, there’s an example I haven’t thought of much. I was speaking with the owner of SOS Appliance Repair of Minneapolis. Technically, the business is in Golden Valley. However, their DexKnows profile page shows their correct physical address and zip, but with Minneapolis as the city. So does Yelp.
Companies have been practicing this long before the Internet for branding purposes alone. A lifetime ago, I worked for a company in the western suburb of St. Louis Park and the yellow pages providers listed their official street address and zip code. The city just changed to Minneapolis. Again, they did this for branding purposes. We’ve all probably seen this many times.
To my knowledge, SOS hasn’t added their business to the Google Local Business Center. If they did, I bet it would be just fine if they used Minneapolis as their official city location. It may or may not help for their Google Maps listing but doubt it would hurt.
Any thoughts out there and do you think this helps or hinders your Google Maps business listing?
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