Another Merging Question

[CWalker]

Hey Everyone, I could use some advice.

Here's the deal:

I recently found a duplicate listing for a dental office I work with. It is claimed, and we do not recognize the email addy associated with the dupe.

Note: The duplicate is only partially filled out. Incorrect phone number. No reviews.

In the past, I would've just called the 800# and jumped through some hoops to get it merged.

This week I emailed with GBP support, and they suggested reporting in on maps and marking as "moved or closed" and select the reason of "duplicate".

Here's my concern:

This listing has started ranking for some major searches over the last month. (rankings that used to be held by our main listing) So I'm hesitant to mark it as closed for being a dupe.

Will reporting a listing as a duplicate cause it to be merged? Or does getting it merged require a different action?

Again...keep in mind the listing is claimed and we do not have access to the email.

Thanks in advance.

P.S. This is a solo practitioner office. His main listing is formatted as "Practice Name - Dr. Name" and the duplicate is "Practice Name".

Thanks again. I'm happy to direct message url's to anyone who can help, but I was hesitant to post them on a public forum.

 

[JS Girard]

I've found this to be very hit and miss. Sometimes you get a proper merge, sometimes you get a disappearance with no content merge, sometimes only SOME of the content is merged (e.g. not all reviews are transferred, photos are almost never merged), sometimes the profile you already control is the one that becomes a dupe...

I'm usually in charge of managing dupes and mergers at our agency and I have yet to find a consistent way to make sure things go how I want (having to deal with France-based Support in French from Quebec is not helping matters either...).

 

[keyserholiday]

You can either use suggest an edit and mark it as duplicate. If that doesn't work, you will need to claim the business profile so that you can take over ownership of the profile. Once you claim it, you need to remove all users from the profile, remove it from your dashboard, and then contact support to merge the profiles.

 

[CWalker]

Thanks JS Girard. I figured that was the case.

Keyserholiday, thanks as well.

I believe I'm going to go ahead and try to claim it and get it merged that way.

With the listing ranking now, I just can't bring myself to mark it closed without a guarantee that it will be merged into our main listing.

 

[keyserholiday]

Thanks JS Girard. I figured that was the case.

Keyserholiday, thanks as well.

I believe I'm going to go ahead and try to claim it and get it merged that way.

With the listing ranking now, I just can't bring myself to mark it closed without a guarantee that it will be merged into our main listing.

Google won't merge to claimed business profiles. Once has to be unclaimed.

 

[CWalker]

Google won't merge to claimed business profiles. Once has to be unclaimed.

Right. So I need to get control of the listing.

But I can't do anything while it's claimed by an email addy no one recognizes.

So my only options are:

a) report it as a duplicate

b) claim it first. Then jump through hoops to get it merged.

Am I missing something?

 

[keyserholiday]

Right. So I need to get control of the listing.

But I can't do anything while it's claimed by an email addy no one recognizes.

So my only options are:

a) report it as a duplicate

b) claim it first. Then jump through hoops to get it merged.

Am I missing something?

That is 100% correct.