Google quietly announced within the Google Help forums that they have made a clarification update to their Place quality guidelines to help business owners know what they can name their business within Google Local and what they can not.
In short, Google is allowing a single descriptor within the business name, if and only if that descriptor is location information or describes your business offers.
Here are the revised guidelines:
- Your title should reflect your business’s real-world title.
- In addition to your business’s real-world title, you may include a single descriptor that helps customers locate your business or understand what your business offers.
- Marketing taglines, phone numbers, store codes, or URLs are not valid descriptors.
- Examples of acceptable titles with descriptors (in italics for demonstration purposes) are “Starbucks Downtown” or “Joe’s Pizza Delivery”. Examples that would not be accepted would be “#1 Seattle Plumbing”, “Joe’s Pizza Best Delivery”, or “Joe’s Pizza Restaurant Dallas”.
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