If customers never come to your address, yes, you should hide it. Google's own rules say a service-area business, like a plumber, house cleaner or mobile detailer who works from home, should clear the address from its Business Profile and show a service area instead.
If customers do visit you, at a shop, studio, office or restaurant with signs on the door, keep the address showing. The rest of this guide covers how to tell which group you're in, how to make the change without tripping verification, and what it does and doesn't do to how you show up.
How do I know if I'm a service-area business?
You're a service-area business if you go to your customers, or deliver to them, but don't serve them at your own address. If people come to you and you also travel to them, Google calls that a hybrid business.
Google's help page on service areas spells out the three types. A few local examples make it concrete:
- Service-area: an electrician in Crozet who runs the business from a home office, a mobile dog groomer, a landscaper, a house painter. Customers never walk into the house.
- Storefront: a bakery on the Downtown Mall, a hair studio, a dental office, a retail shop. Customers come to you during posted hours.
- Hybrid: an auto shop that also does roadside calls, a florist with a counter that also delivers, a restaurant that caters off-site.
One detail trips people up. That same Google page says a business without permanent signage on site isn't eligible as a storefront. So if you see clients by appointment in a spare room with no sign out front, you're usually a service-area business in Google's eyes, even though people technically visit.
What does Google actually require?
Google says that if you're a service-area business, you should hide your business address from customers. It's a guideline, not a privacy setting you can take or leave.
The guidelines for representing your business on Google also rule out a few common workarounds:
- P.O. boxes and remote mailboxes are not acceptable addresses.
- A virtual office that is only a mailing address isn't eligible, and a service-area business can only list one if it's staffed during business hours.
- You get one profile for your whole served area, not one per town.
I bring this up because the fastest way I've seen owners get into trouble is renting a mailbox in a busier town to look local there. That's against the rules, and it puts the whole profile at risk.
How do I hide my address on Google Business Profile?
It takes about two minutes. Google's steps for managing your business address are:
- Go to your Business Profile and select Edit profile, then Location.
- Next to Business location, select Edit.
- Turn off Show business address to customers.
- Select Save.
Once the address is hidden, your profile shows your service area instead. If you haven't entered one, Google picks a local area for you, so set it yourself right away rather than leaving it to a guess.
Hiding the address from the public doesn't remove the need for one. The same help page says that to verify, you have to enter a business address Google can find. Use your real address, then hide it.
How should I set my service area?
List the cities, counties or ZIP codes you actually serve, up to 20 of them, and keep the whole area within about two hours of driving from where you're based. Google doesn't let you set it as a radius around your address.
Both limits come straight from the service area help page. For a home-based contractor in Albemarle County, a realistic list might be Charlottesville, Albemarle County, Crozet, Waynesboro, Staunton and a handful of nearby counties or ZIP codes. Be honest about it. If you've never driven to a job in a town, it doesn't belong on the list just because it's nearby on the map.
Then make your website match. Your service-area pages, footer and contact page should describe the same region your profile does. If you need help there, here's what a good service-area page should include.
Will hiding my address hurt my ranking?
Google doesn't describe any penalty for hiding an address when you're following the service-area rules. What it does say is that local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and how well-known a business is.
That's from Google's page of tips to improve your local ranking. Distance still matters, so don't expect to show up equally in every town on your list. A long list of service areas is a description of where you work, not a way to rank in all of them.
The things you control are the same as for any profile: the right primary category, a complete description and services, real photos of your work, steady reviews, and a name, phone and website that match everywhere else online. That last part is what people mean by NAP consistency, and for a service-area business it's mostly about the name and phone number.
What if Google asks me to verify by video?
Video verification is common for home-based businesses, and it's doable without filming the inside of your house. Google lets home-based service-area businesses record landmarks and signs in the immediate neighborhood to confirm the address.
Google's video verification instructions also ask you to show the tools, equipment or products you use for work, and proof that you manage the business. For a trades business that might be your branded truck, your tool setup, and a business license or invoice with the same name as your profile. Plan the shot list before you hit record, and make sure the business name on any paperwork matches the profile exactly.
What should I do today?
Here's the short version you can do in one sitting:
- Decide honestly whether customers come to your address. If not, you're a service-area business.
- Hide the address in your profile settings, but keep your real address on file for verification.
- Replace any P.O. box or virtual office address with your real one.
- Set up to 20 service areas you actually work in, within about two hours of your base.
- Match your website's service-area wording and contact details to your profile.
- Check Apple Maps and Bing so they don't still show your home address. Here's how to manage those listings.
Want a wider checkup? The free local business growth scorecard walks through your profile, website and phones together in a few minutes.
If you'd rather not wrestle with settings and verification videos, this is everyday work for us. Our local SEO service handles profile setup, service areas and listing cleanup for trades, studios and shops around Central Virginia, and when a website needs to catch up, our website builds cover that too. Either way, you get back to the actual work.
Common questions
Can I hide my address if I see a few clients at home?
If there's no permanent sign on site, Google doesn't treat you as a storefront, so hiding the address and listing a service area is usually the right setup. If you add signage and posted hours, you can show the address as a storefront, or as a hybrid business if you also travel to customers.
Will customers still be able to find me on Google Maps?
Yes. Hiding the address changes what your profile displays, not whether it exists. Google says that once the address is hidden, your profile shows your service area instead of a street address.
Can I use a P.O. box or coworking mailbox instead of my home address?
No. Google's guidelines say P.O. boxes, remote mailboxes and mailing-only virtual offices aren't acceptable. Use your real address for verification and hide it from the public.
Not sure whether your profile is set up the right way? Book a free 15-minute call and I'll look at it with you. No pitch, just a straight answer about what to fix first.