Best practice for cleaning up multiple Google Places listings and multiple Google accounts when logins were lost.
-
We are an inbound marketing agency, most of our clients are not relying on local seo. I have a pretty good understanding of it when starting fresh but not so much in joining a "movie in progress" kind of scenario. Recently we've brought on two clients who have had their websites in place for awhile, have made small attempts at marketing themselves online over the years and its resulted in multiple Google places listings, variations of the company names (one of them changed their name), worried there are yet more accounts out there they aren't aware of, etc (analytics, and others from well intentioned employees and past service providers - no internal leadership at the company level). In reading Google help forums I'm seeing some recently having their accounts suspended when they try to clean things up - in one case a person setup a new Google account thinking he would start fresh and in trying to claim listings, get rid of duplicates, etc. his account was suspended. What is the CURRENT recommended course of action in situations like these? With all the changes going on with Google, I don't know which route to take and have combed the Internet reading articles about this (including Google's resources) - would like some current real world advise.
-
My pleasure, Lisa, and I really like the Google=IRS analogy. Agreed! Hang in there. I know how you feel.
-
This helps immensely! I've seen references to the report a problem option but varying experiences with it so I like having some other tasks combined with it. There do seem to be a lot of people that appear to be doing the sensible things but still not having the most desirable outcomes (we just did a blog piece asking the question "Is Google the IRS of the Internet for Keyword Ranking?" since it does feel a lot like trying to straighten out tax issues
Thanks so much for such a thoughtful and precise answer!!
-
Hi Lisa,
I would recommend that you try to have a phone call with Google staff. Follow this process.
-
First, find all duplicate listings and click the 'report a problem' link on the right hand side. This will take you through the report a problem trouble shooter.
-
Then, I would wait a couple of weeks and if nothing changes, use this troubleshooter:
http://support.google.com/places/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1386120&page=ts.cs
Choose this option, as I am presuming you've got incorrect data issues spread out over a variety of duplicates:
Listing data, including title, address, phone, URL, categories, hours, description, or coupons
Then click the 'yes' button.
You will get a phone option and can hopefully have a conversation with a live person at Google regarding your multiple issues with the client. If they give you advice, I would then check up on the validity of it by visiting the Google and Your Business forum to see if it matches similar advice being given there by other Google employees (http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/business).
Regarding claiming an existent listing, please read the following:
And be sure to follow all of the links in the above piece to get the full picture from Mike Blumenthal on this. Hope this helps!
-
-
Thank you for such a detailed answer, this is my instinct too, just start fresh but when I read in the forums all the problems some businesses are having I thought I'd better explore a little bit just to make sure I wasn't missing an opportunity to do it some other way.
-
My experience was that mergers and removals take so long and can be very very tricky (google made a huge mistake and deleted / merged a profile we had asked to keep and claim later-awaiting for mail-that had a lot of reviews on it and it was gone with no undo in sight.
I would create and confirm a new listing and get a google plus page for it with confirmation, link website and confirm, and then attempt to merge /delete anything old and bad.
I had a google rep on the phone for adwords and analytics and asked them to help me with this issue to avoid just the headache i was dreading and it resulted in them removing what i wanted them to keep and saving what i wanted them to remove. i even made it clear in back and forth emails with her in writing.
so just be careful, maybe if reviews are not important, request closure and merger of all listings and once all are gone and you can confirm, immediately recreate a clean and official permanent account and keep login access somewhere findable and safe for future.
I know a lot of my clients who have issues with not knowing which email their adwords, their social or their google places or plus accounts are connected to.... its a pain to do anything for them when the time comes...
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can we add header tags followed by header tags without text in-between? Best practice?
Hi all, I need clarification on this. We are adding new pages where H2 is followed by few bold bullet point headings with plain text description under each bullet point. I am just wondering whether we can given these bold bullet points as H3 tags as just leave as text. In the below example, can "**Good for website" **and "**Good for visitors" **be H3 tags or not? Benefits of SEO (H2) Good for website: Followed for best practices to show in search results Good for visitors: Will give better user experience. Number of H3 tags followed by a H2 is fine? In fact header tags followed by any header tag if Okay without plain text in-between? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Does Google push down for not ranking top for branded keywords?
Hi all, Usually websites rank for their branded keywords. Some times third party websites takeover the websites for branded keywords. If there are more number of such queries where website is not ranking (top) for branded keywords, Google push down website in overall rankings? Any correlation? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Satisfaction survey on Google search results
Anybody else noticing Google satisfaction surveys on long-tail results? I'm only seeing it when there are no ads... 6071fb3341.png
Algorithm Updates | | Propecta1 -
Is Moz Domain Authority still relvant when it comes to Google ranking?
My understanding of Moz DA is that it is predominantly based on external links. Since Penguin I am noticing more and more websites ranking high in Google with a "low" number of links and certainly a low DA but quality and relevancy of content and also of offering. I understand that there was always more to ranking than DA but is it anymore even relevant to how a site will rank in Google?
Algorithm Updates | | halloranc0 -
Why am I getting different Google SERP result for same keywords?
Hi Mozzers, I have noticed recently that Google (.com.au) has been serving up different SERP results for the same keywords. For example, one of our main keywords is "Car Loan". One result will show our site as ranking #5 organically from 242,000,000 results. A refresh of this search will then result in our site not ranking at all from 133,000,000 results. We have been noticing this happen only in the last few days & more frustrating is that Google is throwing up the SERP from 133,000,000 results more frequently. Would anyone know why this is occurring? And what can we do, if anything, to ensure we are shown regardless of how many results Google calls from? Is it from recent algo update & will it settle down over time? Any help would be greatly appreciated. (Just to add - I'm not gogged in to Google when completing this test & regularly clear cookies etc so I don't believe its a personalised search issue)
Algorithm Updates | | 360Finance0 -
Decent rankings in Google, nothing in Bing and Yahoo
Hi there, I'm in the process of SEOing a site in a very competitive sector, the short term loans market. The URL for the site is http://www.piggy-bank.co.uk. I've managed to get a fair bit of success in Google for some very competitive keywords like short term loans, short term lender etc but in Bing and Yahoo I'm having no luck at all, with only 2 visits in the past month and no decent rankings!! I think I'm doing everything right, with regular new content on the site, decent technical SEO, semantic site structure, regular site map upload, a 10 year old domain, holistic link building through guest blogging etc, but still no luck at all. Looking at the webmaster tools in Bing, 95% of the URLs are indexed, but I'm getting such a low impression count, and obviously, an even lower click through. Am I missing something really obvious? Does anyone have any suggestions to improve my Bing and Yahoo rankings? I've worked on 100s of other sites and Yahoo and Bing tend to be the easy win to make the client happy 😉 Thanks in advance for your help. Dan
Algorithm Updates | | djslimited1 -
Do we have a timeline of google, bing updates
I thought it would be handy if we had a timeline with dates of any updates to the algo's.
Algorithm Updates | | AlanMosley
Does one exists here at SEOMoz or elsewhere.
Thanks3 -
If Google turns down the weight of keywords in domains then what will they be turning up?
Per Matt Cutts video "We will be turning that keyword in domain down." http://youtu.be/rAWFv43qubI So what will they be turning up?
Algorithm Updates | | Thos0030