Best Protocol for Closing Locations Across the IYP Ecosystem?

[russofford]

Hi Pros,

I was recently advised by Yext that marking a location 'closed' in their dashboard will inform their publishers of the new business status. Each of their publishers handle the data differently (some add a closed message to the listing, others remove the listing from public view, etc.) Yext support also suggested to re-name the business, adding the suffix "-CLOSED", to help show those venues who do not support the 'closed' flag, that the business is in fact closed.

I reached out to Moz Local, as well and they informed me that they accept the 'closed' flag, but only Bing and Factual actually accept that field. Their other partners would only be 'notified of the business closure.

I was wondering, what are your opinions regarding the proper method to most effectively close a business location and have that propagate throughout the business listing ecosystem? What might be the ramifications of editing a business listing across 50-60 IYP venues to include '-CLOSED' in the business name? (For example, could this just make things worse and encourage possible duplicate listings appearing with this 'alternate' business name?)

Sincerely,

Russ Offord

 

[JoyHawkins]

Russ,

What's the situation you're referring to. Has the business moved or have they actually closed down forever?

 

[russofford]

Hi Joy,

In this particular case, the locations that are close are 4 different bank branches.

Since the bank has many more branches, I felt it necessary to close the locations 'properly' online for the sake of clients and to have a cleaner IYP listing inventory in general (free of the clutter of listings for branch locations that no longer exist.)

My priority is to go about closing locations/listings in a manner that would best propagate that closure status.

Thanks.

Russ

 

[JoyHawkins]

I would say for Yelp and Yellowpages I've seen the closed label used in the business title and it seems to be how they keep their directory from repopulating new listings for the same business.

I would deal with the major data providers first and if they have a closed status, definitely use that.