Avoid The We Do Not Currently Support This Location Message

There have been a good few cases reported online recently where business owners have received a telephone call from Google Inc. and simply being asked if “they service clients at their business address.” If they have answered no and their address was visible on their Google Places listing they have had their listing removed and replaced with a “We currently do not support this location” message.

Upon querying the situation with Google the following explanation and suggested course of action is given:

“Thank you for contacting Google. Upon further review of your listing, it appears that you’re receiving the “We currently do not support this location” message because your listing currently violates the Google Places quality guidelines:

SERVICE AREA BUSINESSES

If your business travels to its customers and doesn’t have a consistent customer-facing location, you should apply a service area or service areas to your listing. You should also check the box to hide your business address if customers cannot make face-to-face interaction with your business at the address listed. To learn more about service areas, check out this article:

http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=177103

You can find the guidelines at http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?answer=107528

Once your listing adheres to the quality guidelines, you can respond to this email, and we’ll evaluate for re-inclusion on Google Maps.

Thank you for your understanding.”

So basically the rules have now changed for businesses that operate by going to a client’s location to provide services, such as joiners, electricians, roofers, plumbers etc. Previously these businesses could list their location of operation on their Place listing but now, even if these businesses have a physical location where they operate, if they don’t actually interact with customers at the business location, they should hide their business address on their listing and define a service area – the area the business is willing to serve.

According to Google: “If you don’t conduct face-to-face business at your location, you must select the ‘Do not show my business address on my Maps listing’ option within your dashboard.”
If your business model is such that customers do business with you in person at your location and you or an authorized representative of your business travel to customer’s locations you can list your physical address of operation as well as a service location.

Google is still continuing to remove businesses that don’t comply with this change and it’s important that if you have an existing Places listing that you make sure that you have the correct settings for your type of business.

About Mark Watts

Hi, my name is Mark and I'm the owner of SEO Manchester.

I started in SEO in 2009 and have gradually built up my business solely from organic traffic generated via high search engine rankings (mainly Google).

I love building highly optimised WordPress websites and optimising Google Places listings. I am also constantly building on my knowledge of the uses of all forms of social media for marketing effectiveness, particularly Google+.

When not helping clients improve their online presence I enjoy walking the dog around the hills where we live, reading, real ale and (surprise) spending more time on the web.