Applying NAP Local Schema Markup to a Virtual Location: spamming or not?

[RosemaryB]

I have a client that has multiple virtual locations to show website visitors where they provide delivery services.   These are individual pages that include unique phone numbers, zip codes, city & state.  However there is no address (this is just a service area).

We wanted to apply schematic markup to these landing pages.  Our development team successfully applied schema to the phone, state, city, etc.  However for just the address property they said VIRTUAL LOCATION.  This checked out fine on the Google structured data testing tool.

Our question is this; can just having VIRTUAL LOCATION for the address property be construed as spamming?  This landing page is providing pertinent information for the end user.  However since there is no brick and mortar address I'm trying to determine if having VIRTUAL LOCATION as the value could be frowned upon by Google.

Any insight would be very helpful.

Thanks

[RosemaryB]

Excellent response Marcus.  Thanks for your feedback.

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Rosemary

This is against the guidelines for local businesses so could be problematic

Ref: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en-GB

"If your business rents a temporary, "virtual" office at an address that is different from your primary business, do not create a page for that location unless it is staffed during your normal business hours."

If we take a look at the schema page for a local business we can see that this markup is ideally for a physical business

ref: https://schema.org/LocalBusiness

"A particular physical business or branch of an organization. Examples of LocalBusiness include a restaurant, a particular branch of a restaurant chain, a branch of a bank, a medical practice, a club, a bowling alley, etc."

So - to go back to your question I am not sure it is spam as such but it is incorrect in how you are using the mark up. This is not a 'physical business or branch of an organisation' and as such the schema markup is used incorrectly. I would remove the schema markup in this instance.

However - there is no reason why you would not have a location pages for a service area - none at all and you can do these pages well and they can provide real value to a customer in the targeted location. They won't rank in the local pack but they may well rank in the organic results below (or be used for paid traffic)

I wrote about location landing pages in some depth here:
http://searchengineland.com/local-seo-landing-pages-2-0-222583

Hope that helps clear things up for you.

Cheers
Marcus

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I would take advantage of Schema that allows you to markup serviceArea, and also review Google's "Service-area businesses on Google" resource. It allows you to mark "I deliver goods and services to my customers at their locations". Please follow these rules. You shouldn't need to create a listing for each city you service if you tell Google via Google My Business and Schema.

Let me know if this makes sense or if you need anymore help! Good luck!
Patrick