SEO impact (on rankings) for a global website with a physical address

SEO impact (on rankings) for a global website with a physical address - Google Search Console is a free application that allows you to identify, troubleshoot, and resolve any issues that Google may encounter as it crawls and attempts to index your website in search results. If you’re not the most technical person in the world, some of the errors you’re likely to encounter there may leave you scratching your head. We wanted to make it a bit easier, so we put together this handy set of tips about seo, google-search, search-results, to guide you along the way. Read the discuss below, we share some tips to fix the issue about SEO impact (on rankings) for a global website with a physical address.Problem :

Assume I have a website that displays a London physical address on the footer, about-us and contact us pages. However, the website carries country neutral content that I would want to rank well across countries starting from the US in the west to Russia in the east.

The site uses ".com" , a generic TLD.

In such a case can the physical address hurt the rankings in countries other than the UK?

Solution :

A business website having or not having a physical address doesn't normally impact a site's ranking directly, however, it can influence the rankings indirectly. Instead of it being considered a direct SEO ranking factor, it's more considered an ingredient in the trust recipe between the website and Google (and other major Search Engines). Having the address in the footer match the address on the contact page, the about us page helps establish congruency. Plus if the business is also listed in Google Business, Facebook, shows up on Google Maps, etc. this further deepens that trust factor, which can then, in turn, help a site's rankings.

Furthermore, If people are searching for the business address, phone number, etc in Google, then having the address easily found on the website - by both users and search spiders - will only have a positive impact. The location of the user in relation to the business itself shouldn't negate this.

All in all, it comes down to the primary mantra and core value of Google on putting the (human) user first. If the address in the footer solves a user's query better, faster, more efficiently etc. chances are it'll help you with Google and other search engines, and very, very rarely would it ever harm your sites rankings.

I would like to add a little of my thoughts to the excellent answer Joseph B.
By default, the information about the website publisher set in the footer. If the information has confirmation, for example, with a link that is connected with the Google knowledge panel for organizing the publisher, then this is a signal for a high level of trustworthiness, as the Google tells us in the recommendations Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness - EAT:

● Who (what individual, company, business, foundation, etc.) is
responsible for the website.

● Who (what individual, company,
business, foundation, etc.) created the content on the page.

Google repeats roughly the same in its What webmasters should know about Google’s core updates:

Expertise questions

Does the content present information in a way that
makes you want to trust it, such as clear sourcing, evidence of the
expertise involved, background about the author or the site that
publishes it, such as through links to an author page or a site’s
About page?

In addition, an indication of the established and verified publisher is a Google requirement for publishers of news websites:

Transparency

Visitors to your site want to trust and understand who
publishes it and information about those who have written articles.
That's why news sources on Google should provide clear dates, bylines,
information about authors, the publication, the publisher, company or
network behind it, and contact information.

Therefore, my answer to your question: an indication of a valid and verified publisher is a positive signal that indicates a high level of trustworthiness of the content of the website.

If the issue about seo, google-search, search-results, is resolved, there’s a good chance that your content will get indexed and you’ll start to show up in Google search results. This means a greater chance to drive organic search traffic to your site.