Service Area Businesses

This is one of the worst spam problems on Google Maps right now, especially in locksmith and HVAC, these are fake listings run by lead-gen call centers that reroute the call and sell it to whoever bids highest. Report each listing individually using Suggest an Edit and mark it as fake business or spam, but honestly the faster route is filing through the Google Business Redressal form with proof like reverse-lookup of the phone number showing it's a VOIP or call center line. Don't expect quick results though, sometimes it takes multiple reports over weeks before Google actually takes it down.

Yes you should hide the address, Google has a specific setting for this service-area business where you enter your real address privately just for verification purpose but it won't show publicly to customers. It does not hurt your ranking in the way people assume, what actually affects ranking more is how accurately you fill in your service areas and the categories, a hidden address business can still rank fine in map pack if everything else is set up right.

Specific cities almost always work better than one big radius. When you list individual cities or zip codes Google can match your business more precisely to local searches happening in those exact areas, but a large blanket radius tends to dilute your relevancy signal and Google may not show you as strong for any one particular location. Most local SEO people recommend listing out each city by name even if it's more tedious to set up initially.

Google's system automatically flags addresses that don't show clear signs of being a legitimate business location, no visible signage, no separate business entrance and sometimes even just being in a residential zone can trigger the automated spam filter. If you genuinely operate from home you need to make sure category and business description clearly reflect it's a service-area business without walk-in customers, and if you do have some signage or a dedicated space add photos of that during verification to prove it's real.

This happens more often then people expect, when you set the radius too wide Google's algorithm actually interpret it as less locally relevant to any specific town within that radius, so instead of ranking well everywhere you end up ranking weaker across the board including towns close to you. Bring the radius down to a more realistic range, like the towns you actually service regularly, and you'll likely see better visibility in those nearby areas again.

Unfortunately this is pretty common specially in industries like locksmith, HVAC and towing where lead-gen is aggressive. These sites scrape your business number and info then reroute calls or straight up replace your number with theirs on directory sites. First step, do a search of your business name and number to see where all it's appearing incorrectly, then contact those directories directly to request correction or removal, and for Google specifically report it as inaccurate info through Suggest an Edit or the Help Center since impersonation like this violates their guidelines directly.