How to Remove Street View from Google Business

1. How to Remove House Picture from Google Business Listing & Hide Your Address (Service Area Business)

Your home-based local business (often called a Service Area Business or SAB) will appear in Google Business Profile listings with a Street View image of your house if you don't hide your address.

An accurate, well-optimized Google Business Profile listing plays a very important role in Local SEO, but it may look strange to have an image of your house pop up associated with your business in search results.

If your website doesn’t clearly present your business as a service-area company (and what you actually do), it can create confusion across your online presence — which is something we address during web design and site structure work.

In fact, it is against Google Business Profile guidelines to show a residential business address on Google maps. If your business address is zoned as residential, you must hide the address.

Set Up a Service Area for Your Business and Hide Your Pinpointed Address

Most home-based consulting businesses, mobile businesses, or any business where you serve your customers at their location fall into the category of 'Service Area Business'.

When you set up your business on Google My Business as a Service Area Business, you have the option to hide your address. This will prevent the street view photo of your house from appearing in association with your business in Google search results.

Before you can hide your address and street view house photo, you need to designate your business as a Service Area Business (SAB).

How to Change your business to a 'Service Area' business (and hide your address & streetview).

1. Login to manage your Google Business Profile (formerly called Google My Business) listing and click on the business you need to edit. You will be sent to a screen where you 'manage your business on search'.
2. Click on the "Edit profile" icon.
   
3. Toggle off the "Show business address to customers" toggle.  By clearing/hiding your address, you are informing Google that your business is a Service Area Business and the Google street view image will be removed. Note: This will also remove the map marker for your business from the Google Local 3-pack map results.
   
4. Click the pencil icon next to 'Service Areas' and set the service area for your business. Generally speaking, service areas should be no more than 2 hours away from your physical location. Learn more about service area businesses on the map by reading Google's guidelines for representing your business.
5. Be prepared to to a video verification. See this guide from WhiteSpark for more information on Google video verification.

But Wait....Why do some service area businesses keep their residential address published on Google?

It sounds like a no-brainer at first....why would I want a picture of my house showing associated with my Google Business profile? However, there are many businesses who opt to keep their residential address showing on their Google Business Profile....even though it is against guidelines.

You Rank Better on the Map When Your Address is Published

Recent studies and plenty of anecdotal evidence clearly shows a negative correlation between hiding your address and ranking well in the map. (ugh!)

Additionally, since Google confirmed a long time ago that clicks on a business listing are a ranking factor for local search results, many businesses avoid doing anything that could negatively affect the number of clicks, including removing their address.

Let me be clear, though...leaving your residential address published on Google Business Profile is clearly against guidelines, and if you are reported by a savvy competitor, your listing may be suspended. In fact, we regularly report profiles that are out of compliance on behalf of our clients.

The Red Pin on the Map Can Help with Click Through Rate

For searchers who are looking for the business that is geographically closest to them, having a marker for your business on the map may provide an advantage....a bright red dot on the map on which searchers can click. Further, when a user hovers over a pinpoint on the map, additional information about the business is provided.

By removing the marker from the map, this could lead to less clicks on your business profile (because no bright red dot or info panel is shown).

Because this creates an uneven playing field, service-area businesses often offset the map disadvantage by investing in organic SEO strategies like local city landing pages that support city- and service-based searches outside of Google Maps.

Choose What Works for Your Business

Some other things to consider when deciding whether to hide your home business address from your Google Business listing are:

• When your business address is hidden, your business is still eligible to appear in the Local 3-Pack...just with no map marker.
• According to Google guidelines, a Local Business on Google should only display a pinpointed address if the business serves customers at that address at least some of the time.
• Many, many businesses are home-based, so there isn't necessarily a stigma attached to seeing the street view of the house in association with a business.
• An unattractive or very old Google Street View image may be more harmful than helpful depending on what type of business you have.
• If the Street View image is incorrect, or Google doesn't have the map marker quite right, you can report incorrect Street View imagery and adjust the pin to associate it with more accurate imagery.
• Add Local Business photos to your business profile to help searchers find and understand your business. This can help draw attention away from a less than ideal street view image of your business.