Dealing with listings created by third parties (E.g. Yellow Pages)

[MattCarter08]

Hi have a client with over 100+ stores and wants to take control over Google Places listing

Some of their listings were created by a third party directory (e.g. Yellow Pages).

Which have customer reviews.

We want to take control over the listing without losing the customer reviews. We also want to take control over the listing via bulk upload to claim the listing. We don't want to do individual verification. We are verified by Google.

My question - how do we take control over these listings created by third parties, using Google Bulk Feed uploader?

Do we recreate the listing, add the stores information to the spread sheet file (with the other listings) upload a new feed (with the new store information) and then Google will merge and give us control over the listing?

My concern would be the risk of a duplicate listing from occurring. Or the merge results in lost customer reviews.


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There is the other option of individual verification e.g.





However we don't want to do this, as it will take way to long, most of the store owners won't like it either.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Sorry Matt, I don't have an answer for you because I don't deal with bulk listing management at all.

But a couple thoughts.

Have you read my posts about all the problems that come into play when listings are dual claimed, in other words if you claim and they are still in the YP dash?

Have you tried contacting YP to see if they will delete from their dash? (I assume it would be a daunting task to get to the person that deals with this and get them to do it but worth pursuing.)

Have you heard about the fact that things are changing and when the new dashboard comes you'll no longer be able to claim a listing that was already claimed by someone else? At least you won't just be able to automatically do it as before? You'll need to go through support to do it? So that creates another wrinkle. BUT I don't know if that is tied to indiv listing management due to the new dash OR if it's more a back end pipeline issue that would also apply to bulk listings.

Have you posted this Q at the Google forum? Seems to me in my scanning I maybe saw it but I'm not sure. If you did post there, please give me the link. If not, please post there and then provide the link here for me so I don't have to take time hunting it down. If it has not be adequately answered there, I can escalate it because this question is complicated on several levels and affects a lot of listings.

 

[MattCarter08]

Hi Linda,

Thanks for your reply.

I just posted it on the google fourm: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/business/ZZomZQf7EOo/qrZvF7BhNE0J

I will keep you updated.

 

[Broland]

Your best bet is to individually claim each one. If you don't have the time, you could outsource this task fairly inexpensively - anyone with basic computer skills should be able to get 100 done in about a day.

Google+ Local Places Local + Maps is quite fickle and if you use the bulk method and count on Google recognizing and merging duplicates without loosing any reviews, I think you may be sorely disappointed and wish you had spent $100 or so, or just taken the time to avoid all the long term problems.


Just my 2 cents