The short answer: if you go to the people you serve and don't welcome them at your base (most plumbers, cleaners, pest control companies and handymen), set your Business Profile up as a service-area business: list the towns or areas you cover and hide the street address. If customers do visit you, keep the location visible and add a service area as well. Never use a mailbox, a virtual office or a relative's home to look local somewhere you are not.
It is a common setup mistake, and it is quick to fix.
Which kind are you?
Google sorts local listings into three kinds:
- Storefront: customers come to you, at a place with staff during opening hours. A dental office, a salon, an auto shop.
- Service-area business: you travel to customers and don't serve them where you are based. A plumber working from home, a mobile dog groomer, a house cleaning crew.
- Hybrid: both. A garage door company with a showroom that also sends technicians out.
Google's Business Profile help pages on service-area businesses explain the rules. The short version: show the street location only if customers are served there.
Why hiding the address is the right call
If you work from home, showing it invites strangers to your door and puts your family's location on a public map. It also breaks the guidelines when nobody is there to serve visitors, and that can lead to a suspension.
Hiding it does not hide you. Your listing still appears in searches near you and inside the areas you list; the map simply shows a shaded area or no pin instead of your house.
How to set it up
- Open the listing while signed in to the account that manages it, and go to the information or location section.
- Clear the street details (or switch them off from public view, depending on the screen you see). You still need a real location for verification; it stays private.
- Add your service areas as towns, cities or postal codes. List the places you really go.
- Save, and check the public listing from a private browser window to confirm your street no longer shows.
If you are setting up a new listing, the setup asks whether clients visit your location. Answer honestly and the rest follows.
Choosing the areas you list
Think of the list as a promise: "we come here." A few rules of thumb:
- Start from where you already work. List the towns you visit most and could reach on a normal day.
- Don't stretch it. Google's guidance is that a service area shouldn't extend much past a reasonable drive from where you are based; its help page mentions about two hours of driving.
- Use the names customers use. If people say a neighbourhood name rather than the city, and the form offers it, use it.
- Keep it current. Drop places you stopped serving. Calls from outside your real area waste everyone's time.
Remember that listing a town is not the same as appearing there. Distance from your base still counts, so you will usually show more often near home than at the edge of your area.
Help customers in each area on your website
The profile says where you go; your website can say it in more detail. A page for each main area you cover, with real local detail (which neighbourhoods, typical jobs there, how fast you can usually get there), helps homeowners and search engines connect you to those places.
Write each page for the people who live there. Swapping only the town name on copies of one page is a pattern search engines call doorway pages, and it does more harm than good. Our guide to ranking in more than one city shows how to do this properly.
What customers want to see instead
A hidden street does not make you look less real, as long as the rest of the listing is full. Customers deciding whether to let you into their home look for:
- recent reviews that mention the job and the person who came,
- photos of real jobs, your vehicle and your team,
- a phone number that is answered, or a quick callback,
- clear hours, including when you take emergency calls, if you do.
Put the same points on your website: who comes to the door, which towns you cover and how fast you usually arrive. That builds more trust than a pin on a map.
Common mistakes
- A virtual office or mailbox as your location. Not allowed, and a frequent reason for suspension.
- Showing a home street "for trust". Trust comes from reviews, photos and clear contact details, not a pin on your house.
- One listing per town. You get one listing per real location. Extra listings for areas without a staffed office break the rules.
- A huge area. Listing every county in the state doesn't make you show there; it attracts calls you can't take.
If your listing has already been suspended for one of these, see our suspension guide.
Common questions
Will hiding my street hurt my map results?
Your results still depend on relevance, distance and prominence. Google still knows where you are based when the street is hidden, and hiding it is what the guidelines ask of a business that serves customers at their door. What it changes is what customers see.
Can I show my location and a service area?
Yes, if customers really visit you there. That is the hybrid setup: keep the street visible, opening hours for visitors, and add the areas you travel to.
I work from home but have a sign and meet some clients there. What do I pick?
If you are there and ready to serve customers during the hours you list, the location can show. If visits are rare and by appointment only, a service-area setup is usually the honest choice.
Do I need a separate profile for each town I serve?
No. One company at one real base gets one entry with a service area. Separate listings are only for separate, staffed locations.
Next steps
Run the free listing checker to see what your listing shows today. For the other fields, read the profile optimization guide. If you would rather we set this up with you, see our Google Business Profile service, or how it works for plumbers and pest control companies.