Five companies are registered at my address. What does that do to my map profile?

Two things, and both are unpleasant in a way you might not expect.

First, what's actually on the map

Google Maps shows your premises (provozovna), not your company. The register knows two addresses, and they don't have to match:

• Registered office (sídlo) — the company's address in the register. Often a flat, an accountant's office or a virtual address.
• Premises (provozovna) — the place customers come to. In the trade register it has its own entry and its own name, i.e. your shop sign.

If the profile was created from the registered office, it shows an address where customers won't find you. And the registered office is exactly the address five companies share.

What goes wrong

The customer goes to the wrong place. That's obvious and the least harmful: it can be fixed in an afternoon.

The search engine confuses you with a neighbour. This is worse, and you can't see it. When five listings share one address, the address no longer sets you apart — only the name can. And if your profile is named after the company in the register while your door shows a completely different sign, nobody will find you under that sign: the name isn't in the profile.

From what we've seen in Prague listings: almost half of the businesses on our list share their registered address with five or more entities. It's not an edge case.

What to do

1. Check which address your profile shows. Open your profile on Google Maps and compare it with where customers actually come.
2. If it shows the registered office, change it to your premises. You change this in the profile's address settings; Google will verify the address.
3. Name the profile after your shop sign, not your legal name. If your door says, for example, Kebab u nádraží, call the profile that. The legal name in the register can be anything — customers don't search for it.
4. Register your premises in the trade register, if they aren't there yet. It's free, and it's the only place where your shop sign is officially recorded.
5. If you don't have your own entrance, add directions and a photo of the entrance to the profile. With a shared address, that's the one thing that gets customers to you.

What not to do

Don't create a second profile at the “right” address next to the first one. Two profiles of the same business split your reviews, and sooner or later Google merges or hides one of them — and you don't get to choose which.