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A recent inquiry has surfaced on Google Product Forums regarding a new Google Places policy that would ban Regus business locations to advertise on Google. Virtual offices have long been abused to try and acquire rankings and visibility in a city the business is not really located in. If all Regus-based locations were no longer able to advertise on Google Places, thousands of local businesses would be affected.
User cm1960 comments:
“I’ve been informed by someone at Google Places that there is a new policy to disallow Regus business location businesses to advertise using Google Places.”
They go on to say a Google Places Representative named Travis has confirmed the policy, saying it’s “non-negotiable” and labeling it as a black and white issue.
Linda Buquet of Local Search Forum responds:
“It’s been long known that virtual offices are not allowed and Regus offices are often abused just to rank in cities a business is not really located in. But I was not aware an official policy had been made that was that black and white. I’ll escalate this post and ask Google to see if we can get official confirmation.”
Read the full conversation here.
At this point, the official policy is unconfirmed. Advice Local’s representatives intend to monitor the situation closely and keep you apprised of any updates.
How do you think a ban on Regus business locations would affect local search and small businesses? Is this a good thing to clean up spammers or detrimental to legitimate local businesses?
Hopefully they do make this an official policy. I’m tired of seeing 10-20 different businesses all at the same address. I get what people are trying to do though and the ones that actually use these virtual addresses will just have to get caught in the process.
Any word on whether this “rule” is going to be applied to all virtual office providers or just Regus locations? I operate a virtual office center with over 170 clients – a vast majority of whom are legitimate small businesses that simply don’t want to be using their home addresses on their websites. This rule could have a profoundly negative impact on a great many businesses that can’t afford and don’t need an office suite of their own.
@nathan your exactly right about it how this rule could really impact the businesses that really use virtual offices to really do business. I feel for you man.
It seems to me that the Big G is cracking down on Local, and there is no fine line for acceptable virtual office vs virtual offices clearly purchased to rank in Google Maps section.
Although this policy is made for the betterment of the businesses but definitely it will gonna effect the business of many enterprises. Don’t know why Google has implemented it so late. It should have done long back.
Hope it will not affect much to businesses.