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Wrong address on Google and how to change it

When it breaks 5 min read

Where a wrong address on your Google listing comes from, how to correct both the address and the map pin, and what to do when the edit keeps reverting.

A customer calls, annoyed, from a parking lot two miles away. Or a delivery goes to a unit you left three years ago. You open your listing and there it is, an address you did not type, on a profile you thought you controlled.

You are not going mad, and you probably did not do it. Addresses on Google move for reasons that have nothing to do with you.

Where a wrong address comes from

Google builds and updates listings from more than what you type in. Members of the public can suggest an edit to any listing, and some of those edits go live without anybody asking you. Data companies feed business records to Google from directories, license registers and old paperwork. A previous tenant at your unit leaves their record behind. A delivery driver marks the entrance in the wrong place and the pin follows.

Sometimes it is closer to home. An old marketing account still has access and updated the profile during a campaign. A staff member fixed a typo and made it worse.

A wrong address is not evidence you neglected anything. Nobody sends a letter when it changes.

Check what a stranger sees, not what your dashboard says

The dashboard shows you what you last saved. That is not always what is on the map.

Open a private browsing window on your phone. Search your business name and your town. Look at the address on the listing, then tap the directions button and see where it wants to send you. Do that from a phone rather than a desktop, because that is the thing your customer is holding.

If the printed address is right but the directions are wrong, you have a pin problem rather than an address problem, and they are fixed in different places.

The address and the pin are two separate things

The written address is one field. The map pin, the little marker that decides where the blue line ends, is a separate piece of data that Google works out for itself and that other people can nudge.

So an address can read perfectly and still land drivers behind the building, in a service alley, or on the far side of a dual carriageway with no way across. Fix one and the other can stay wrong.

Change the address first

In your profile, edit the address field and make it exact. Unit number, suite, floor, the lot. If your unit has a letter, the letter goes in. If there are two entrances, the address is the one with your name on it.

Save it and expect a delay. Address changes are reviewed, sometimes automatically and sometimes by a person, and they can take days to appear. Occasionally an address edit puts the profile into a verification step again, which is tedious rather than alarming.

Then drag the pin

Once the written address is right, go back into the profile, open the map, and move the marker to the spot where a driver should actually stop. The curb outside your door. The gate the van goes through. The parking lot entrance, not the middle of the building.

If your customers come to you, this single drag is worth more than most of the profile. Somebody who arrives at the wrong end of an industrial estate in the rain does not call you to ask. They give up.

When the edit keeps reverting

Sometimes you fix it, and a week later it is wrong again. That means something is feeding Google the old answer, and there are three usual culprits.

Public edit suggestions, which you cannot switch off. Old listings for the same business at the old address, which look to Google like better information than yours, and which is a reason to sort out any duplicates first. And your own paperwork: the old address still sitting in the footer of your website, on directory profiles, on your invoices and on your license record. Google reads the wider internet, and the internet is still saying the old thing.

The old address lives in more places than Google

While you have the file open, fix it everywhere else in one sitting. Your website footer and contact page. Your Facebook page. The directories you signed up to years ago. Your invoice template, your quote template and your email signature.

This is dull and it is the part that makes the correction stick, because every one of those pages is a vote for the wrong answer.

If the address is your house

You do not have to publish it. If the work happens at the customer's place, hide the address and set a service area instead. Your home stays private, and the listing becomes an honest description of a business that comes to you.

Do that rather than inventing a fake address or renting a mailbox, both of which are the fastest routes to a suspended profile.

A checklist for fixing an address

Questions people ask

Who changed my address without telling me

Most likely a public edit suggestion, a data feed from an old directory record, or an account that still has access from years ago. You will rarely find out which, and it does not change the fix.

Can I stop people suggesting edits to my listing

No. There is no setting that turns it off. What you can do is look at your own listing from a phone once a month, which takes a minute and catches it early.

The address is right but directions send people to the wrong street

That is the pin, not the address. Open the map in your profile and drag the marker to the right spot. It is a separate edit and it is the one that fixes directions.

I moved. Should I make a new listing

No. Edit the address on the existing listing so the reviews come with you. A new listing starts at zero and leaves an old one behind on the old street.

How long does an address change take to show up

Usually days. Sometimes it triggers a review or a fresh verification, which is longer. Editing it repeatedly while you wait does not help and can slow it down.

Somebody else is verified on my listing and I cannot edit anything

Then the address is the second problem. Getting the keys back is the first, and it is a process with its own steps.

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