Client Insists on moving Places to Different Gmail/Domain acct

[Tyson Downs]

I just picked up a new client that is insisting on moving his Places account from his personal Gmail to a generic Gmail or a domain email account. His rankings stink (He lives in a major metro area), (just ranks in Places for cosmetic dentist city name and city name cosmetic dentist).

He only has 3 reviews on his Places page.

Besides starting all over and most likely losing this, is there anything else I need to consider? I of course want to accomodate him as much as possible, while looking out for his best interests.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Possibly lose reviews and possibly won't rank at all for 6 - 8 weeks. Those are the main things.

Then too, some feel age of Place page plays a factor in ranking.

A new listing will get the new dash so if he has any custom cats like Invisalign Dentist, those will go away. But would at some point anyway once he's upgraded.

So those are the main issues.

Is this just a trust issue and he is worried about you reading his email? I've always been able to get around that issue and get the existing log in, after I explain the above and assure them I log directly into the dash, don't go into any other parts of the account and would never read someone's email anyway. I assure them that I'm far too busy and it's against my principles.

 

[ARKlady ARKtechCo]

Losing visibility for eight weeks or more would be an issue if they are getting traffic but I totally get wanting to move the business off the personal account.

We tend to set up a business profile of the owner especially with all the integration going on between all the G properties. This keeps it safer from mistakes and if the business sells it is easier to transfer and untangle.

As Linda mentioned, I'd find out what the thinking is behind the move and discuss the pros and cons. If they are seeing traffic and getting calls or visitors, it may be a concern since they would disappear for a while.

I think this would be a good opportunity to motivate them to work on both local ranking of their site and the places page moving forward. During the downtime it would be a good opportunity to get all the online properties in alignment and optimized for better results all around.

 

[Tyson Downs]

I see where he is coming from. He has two Google accounts now.

He has a mishmash of Google properties across those logins including:

Places
Analytics (he has two sites)
Webmaster Tools
Google +

He wants to have one streamlined login that will allow him to give out to anybody, not just me so they can help him as needed.

 

[ARKlady ARKtechCo]

I see, that is why we create a biz acct. That is a mess that takes time to sort...

 

[Tyson Downs]

Yes I usually do too when possible. I explained things and fortunately he is good with me using his current account.

he just had a lot of cross over in Google properties with different logins, he wanted to consolidate.

I'll never know why there is admin access for some products but not others.