Catalyst - 4:50 am on May 27, 2012 (gmt 0)

A little confused because you are talking about businesses serving a different area than they are located in. That's not what Places is for. Even if you didn't have address hidden you would not rank for competive keywords except for the the city you located in.

But as I mentioned in your other thread, if you have a business IN the city you service and hide your address, per the new guidelines, it doesn't really hurt ranking now. It may have in the past.

Check for yourself. Do a bunch of searches for "city + keyword". Try different cities and keywords like carpet cleaners, moving company, plumbers, exterminators. You'll see a bunch of listings that rank #1 even though they have address hidden (even above listings that show address).

Keep in mind too, that right now about 70% of local searches are pulling the BLENDED algo which is about 95% based on organic ranking factors, not Places ranking factors such as address anyway.

Linda Buquet