Moving Your Office Without Losing your Google Rankings - Joy Hawkins

Linda Buquet · Nov 6, 2015

Joy wrote a really good post over at Search Engine Land and I wanted to be sure to share here.

My advice to businesses about the best way to handle moves with Google is:
"Just don't move! And don't ever change your name either!"

Joy's advice is better...

<a href="http://searchengineland.com/business-owners-guide-moving-office-234671">Moving Your Office Without Losing Rankings: The Local Business Owner's Guide</a>

What do you think? Learn any new tips?

Colan Nielsen · Nov 7, 2015

Fantastic post Joy! This tip is a great one and often overlooked:

Find The Listing On Google For The Previous Business And Mark It Closed
If you are moving to a new office, it’s likely that there was a business that occupied that location before you. Find out who that is, and make sure you mark their business listing as closed. Use these steps to find the listing for the other business.

Once you have the listing(s), you can submit the edit in MapMaker to mark the business closed. It is helpful to include comments in your edit stating that this business has recently closed and a new business is moving in. This will help the Regional Leads approve your edit faster since it’s likely that Google’s Street View will still show the old business.

Keep in mind that duplicate listings are common with Google Maps, so the previous business might have more than one listing for you to edit. You also might find several businesses using your new address and suite number. I’ve seen cases where businesses that left more than five years ago still had listings on Google Maps that were not marked closed yet.

CodyBaird · Nov 9, 2015

"Find the previous business listing at the new location and make sure that listing is closed also closed"

I would dare say that less than 1% of smb's or SEO's tackle that issue.

Well done Joy!

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MiriamEllis · Dec 14, 2015

This was a great post from Joy - and I wondered if I can ask for affirmation of this advice,

"Log in to your Google My Business dashboard and update the address there. Make sure you not only update the address but also look at where the pin marker is."

The above has also been my understanding - that you should update your EXISTING LISTING in GMB, rather than creating a new one, if you are moving from one location to another.

But, how can we reconcile this with Google's guidlines (https://support.google.com/business/answer/4578106?hl=en) which list out this process:
-----
Mark a location as closed or moved
Find the closed or moved business on Google Maps.
Click Report a Problem at the bottom of the Google Maps result.
Click the ?Place is permanently closed or doesn't exist? button.
Click ?Yes? when it appears.
If the place has moved to a new location, enter the new location?s information in the comment box.
Click Submit.
-----

Google's guidelines indicate that they want the new address listed in the comments box, rather than doing a direct edit to GMB. Maybe the guidelines are old ... maybe they are speaking to community edits rather than owner edits? I'd love to hear this community's thoughts on this. Thanks!

mborgelt · Dec 14, 2015

Paired with the news that you can now close a listing within GMB, moving has become MUCH more simply than the years before. The real trouble is when the location a client moves to has a myriad of it's own NAP issues. A move can sometimes be as much work as handling a couple of locations. Thanks again for dropping your excellent GMB knowledge on the community Joy and Linda!

Colan Nielsen · Dec 14, 2015

MiriamEllis said:
But, how can we reconcile this with Google's guidlines (https://support.google.com/business/answer/4578106?hl=en) which list out this process:
-----
Mark a location as closed or moved
Find the closed or moved business on Google Maps.
Click Report a Problem at the bottom of the Google Maps result.
Click the ?Place is permanently closed or doesn't exist? button.
Click ?Yes? when it appears.
If the place has moved to a new location, enter the new location?s information in the comment box.
Click Submit.
-----

Google's guidelines indicate that they want the new address listed in the comments box, rather than doing a direct edit to GMB. Maybe the guidelines are old ... maybe they are speaking to community edits rather than owner edits? I'd love to hear this community's thoughts on this. Thanks!

Hi Miriam, I do think that page is in need of an update but I believe Google is referring to community edits.

Colan Nielsen · Dec 14, 2015

Interesting point though. I suppose technically that guideline would be for unclaimed listings only. And if a user reported a verified listing as closed the dashboard would receive a notification and the owner could act accordingly.

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Moving Your Office Without Losing your Google Rankings - Joy Hawkins

Linda Buquet

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Colan Nielsen

CodyBaird

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MiriamEllis

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mborgelt

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Colan Nielsen

Colan Nielsen

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