Can a Business Owner Merge Reviews of His DBA Business To Their Primary Business GBP?

[Ed209]

Hi,

Before I reach out to Google on this matter, I would like to ask for the board's input first, as some of you may have already dealt with a similar situation before.

This is the situation:

1: Main company: Acme Media
Has its own business address, website, phone number, and GBP profile and reviews.

2: DBA (Doing Business As) company: Smith Consulting
Has a different business address, a different website, different phone number and GBP profile and reviews.

The DBA business Smith Consulting is created and operated by the same founder of Acme Media.

The services provided are similar, in the same field of expertise and all reviews left on the DBA GBP profile refer to the owner of the primary business.

If I understand correctly Google can not merge profiles / reviews if it involves two separate business entities / owners with different address info.

But what if the other business profile is managed by the same owner, clients interacted with the same owner and the secondary business is a DBA business of the primary business?

Does that change things? - Can reviews on the DBA GBP be transferred over to the primary GBP profile?

Thanks in advance for any insights and previous experiences you may have dealing with a review merge scenario like this.

Have a nice day!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

I think you have a chance at having the reviews moved over. Based on your description, the DBA should never have had a Google Profile to begin with. But if the reviews are legit Google can move them to the proper listing.

 

[Ed209]

Thanks Colan, I appreciate your input!

 

[Ed209]

Hi Guys,

I've got an update from Google.

Kindly understand that to transfer the reviews the business name, phone number and categories of both the profiles should match. However, in your case we see that you are requesting transfer the reviews of two different profiles.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused. We regret informing you that reviews cannot be transferred due to different business names.

Evidence of the DBA and of the primary business was included to prove both business are owned by the same person as referenced in the reviews.

Would it be an option to update the business name of the DBA profile to the business name of the main profile?

Or would this trigger an automated suspension of the DBA profile?

But the address is the same as the primary business, so if we can verify the suspended DBA listing wouldn't it be possible to then request a profile merge?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Would it be an option to update the business name of the DBA profile to the business name of the main profile?

Or would this trigger an automated suspension of the DBA profile?

You can try that. I think the worst case scenario is the DBA listing gets flagged as a duplicate. You can also try explaining to Google support that the DBA is the exact same business, and that you created the DBA listing by mistake since you were unaware of the rules. So since the DBA listing in essence, is the exact same business, the reviews technically are for the same business and I would think could be transferred.

 

[Ed209]

Hi Guys,

I was able to get some updates done on the GMB profile, updates where made to the phone number, the categories, the address and the business name.

All these things now match with the profile we would like to receive the reviews of the DBA profile that we don't need anymore.

So at this point I only have to unverify the profile from our account to proceed with a merge request, which triggers the following window:

Will reviews also be deleted if I continue at this point?