So I have been trying approval from GMC and have not been successful at it. I hired someone to help me out but we got denied again today and he told me its because I removed my address from the footer (it is my personal address as I do online and markets only). I do not want my home address out there as I do not have a storefront. Has anyone figured out a way around this? Also will I get flagged if my phone number is not the same as on my business documents? I’m thinking of getting a google number. Also why do I need to post business hours for an online store? pulling my hair out currently.
you have to have an address for google to know you are who you say you are and it builds trust with customers may i suggest if you dont want your home address is you look at Virtual Address. You can buy virtual business addresses to use for your business they even forward mail onto you kind of a genius Hack to get around that Hours just list them 9-5 standard hours, let me say this, every listing you list on business listing websites all information needs to be the same, otherwise you will have information on one site that’s different than another and google can read this and your visibility and rankings wont improve because the information is inconsistent , You have to play the game unfortunately , And just be carefull on who you hire iv hired many people in the past and i feel iv wasted money and i ended up fixing the issues in the end myself, AI use it Work with it treat it as your best friend i use copilot / chat gpt turn the mic on and talk to it and tell it the issue you are facing read out errors or copy and paste them into ai and ask it to talk you thru the errors and tell you what they are and the different ways you can go about fixing them seriously the best secret weapon you can ever use, don’t just use it here and there use it like it is your business expert iv learnt everything from AI from not knowing how to code to now confidently say im advanced level knowledge
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Thank you for your reply. Are you using a virtual address? Because i’ve heard google doesn’t take kindly to those
No i leased a office in town where i am that i can go to each day to seperate business from home, aalso a option for you if you have $ have a look in your local area you can lease a office or small room in buildings for next to nothing a week 50 maybe prob the same amount as buying one online, not sure how google would recognise a virtual address as that’s solely there purpose as they forward your mail and a whole bunch of other services https://www.anytimemailbox.com/virtual-business-address have a look at that or this one https://www.alliancevirtualoffices.com/virtual-offices-locations or this https://www.wework.com/solutions/wework-business-address
As you have limited amount of reviews you can ask, don’t pretend you are located somewhere with a virtual address. That will put you at great risk for a continues suspension. And as you have maybe 3 requests, don’t follow any steps to mislead users or Google.
Google sees a virtual address as misleading.
To increase trust signals, you should add an address in the footer of all pages and in the contact page, because Google wants to see you are a real business.
Everything you submit in your website, should match the GMC details and your identity verification.
I recommend you start by having a look at the guides and policies below:
https://support.google.com/google-ads/community-video/318699100
https://support.google.com/google-ads/community-guide/304792695
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150127
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6363310/follow-the-merchant-center-guidelines
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/7052112
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/4752265
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/13693865
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6149970
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/9158778
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150244
https://support.google.com/google-ads/community-guide/241068758