Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

[Cam]

Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

I would like to get some opinions on this question from seasoned SEO's in attempts to get some insight as to what will happen to your Local Search rankings if you completely delete your existing Google account and start over with the same local business web property using a Newly created Google account?


Yes, I am aware that this would involve having to redo my Google+ personal and Business page and Google Local for business and go through the verification process once again.

I am also aware that I will lose all of my post, etc, etc,

Without me going into a long winded and timely ordeal of having to explain the entire case history with a blow by blow description of everything, I would just like to get the communities view on what kind of repercussions that this will have and to what extent will my established local seo suffer?


I am a 6 year veteran as a developer, web master and SEO so not a newbie but far from knowing everything. I have always practiced and performed white hat SEO as I believe that nothing good comes from instant gratification.

In case anyone wants it here is my site Computer Repair Services Wilmington NC – PC Medics On Call

What's the consensus gang??

 

[Linda Buquet]

Re: Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

Without me going into a long winded and timely ordeal of having to explain the entire case history with a blow by blow description of everything, I would just like to get the communities view on what kind of repercussions that this will have and to what extent will my established local seo suffer?[/B]

Hi Cam, thanks for posting as requested. But could you just copy and paste all the other details you emailed me?

It's never a good idea to delete and start over unless the account is suspended and can't be reinstated - for a variety of reasons. It's always better to fix the problem. AND depending on the problem, just starting a new listing may not fix it anyway. AND sometimes fixing it is easier than you think - you may have just gone the wrong path to try to resolve it.

I'm sorry but I was sick and spacey the day you emailed me the full long history and explained the issue and I can't find your email now.

So we need full details to be able to give you an answer.

I needed your G+ L link but I searched and think I found it. Can you confirm if this is the page in question? https://plus.google.com/+pcmedicsoncall/about?gl=us&hl=en

 

[Cam]

Re: Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

Hi Linda and Happy New Year

Yes, that is my Google Business page.

Don't apologize for being sick, we've all been there and know what's up on that front.

Sure, I can copy and past the email contents but I am afraid that a more in depth and detailed explanation will be required anyway above the few points that I briefly alluded to in the email.

COPY AND PASTE MATERIAL:

We have spoken before on SEOMOZ and I happened to stumble upon your forum last night so I actually just signed up today. I am having a problem as I do not seem to have the ability to post a new thread so that I can ask a very specific question that needs and expert response to.

Anyway, seeing how I was going to ask this of you directly on the forum I see no reason why I don't just do it now considering that I am communicating with you already.

My question: I have been web mastering and doing SEO for the past 6 years now and I have always had the same GOOGLE Account for Analytics, Web Master Tools etc.

However, I have had numerous problems with this account such as my local places listing having the "Location Not Currently Supported" issue that went on for a year and was not able to get that rectified until google added actual phone support.

Just recently the rectified issues associated with my Google account seem to be coming back in other ways such as..

Analytics is not filtering my IP Address and continues to logg my traffic to my website (My IP is the Only Filter Rule)

Google Local for Business Places yet again showing that there were problems with verification despite that I re-branded my company in June and had that successfully verified and setup without issues for 5 months. I just had to deal with google again 3 times for that recently.

My Google + Business Page has only 7 legitimate reviews (I lost 63 reviews do to the previous google issues) and over the course of the last 2 months my reviews appear and disappear then reappear again only if I initiate a proactive call to Google local.

Quite frankly, I am tired of the unnecessary hoopla and never ending cycle of extra work that I need to do because there is some internal issue on the google level with my account.

The long and short of this is will I be able to completely delete my google account and start fresh with a new account without losing any of my Local Search Rankings?

I understand that I will need to do a lot of work recreating my Google Plus profile, Business page, etc, etc and I am not to thrilled about any of this but if it puts an end to reoccurring long term problematic issues that I have experienced with my existing google account over the past 6 years it seems like it would be worth it just to bite the bullet and deal with setting everything up again from scratch to avoid ongoing issues.

Can I do this without killing my Search Rankings Linda?


I would ask a google engineer directly (which I have tried) but have no luck getting an actual engineer to speak with.

I appreciate you for taking the time to read this and I know that you will be able to provide me with a yes or no with the actual fact regarding possible the possible repercussions that this may have.


Cam

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Re: Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

Hey Cam,

Yes, we need some more detail in order to deliver the best advice. As Linda mentioned, almost never a good idea to remove a listing from one account and claiming into another unless totally necessary.

However, the G+ Local page that Linda linked to has been upgraded. This means that you can simply transfer ownership to a new account. That would be your best option, I think.

https://support.google.com/plus/answer/2380629?hl=en

 

[Linda Buquet]

Re: Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

I would ask a google engineer directly (which I have tried) but have no luck getting an actual engineer to speak with.

Thanks for copying Cam.

Google will not comment on ranking issues and you can't talk to the engineers directly.

You have one GLARING problem that could be at the root of some of this, that just setting up a new account won't fix.

You have a major violation and need to hide your address since it appears to be a home based business. That's likely why you had the "Location Not Currently Supported" problems.

If you changed your name that would result in ranking loss and lost reviews too.

If reviews are coming and going and you are having problems like needing to re-verify that is likely due to the rebranding as well.

Have you changed all your citations?

Reviews coming and going also sounds like could be a hidden merged dupe problem. Have you searched to see if you have another listing in a different Google account? Or have you previously had a designer or SEO help you that may have created another Place page? Having more than one claimed page can cause review, ranking and other problems.

From what you described above I don't really understand what you think is a problem with the account and what would be fixed by setting up a new listing?

From what I see based on the issues you mention above, the problems I think are systemic, due to the name change and violation and would not be helped by a new account.

Fixing the hide your address violation and cleaning up citations could help.

 

[Cam]

Re: Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

Number 1: Yes, I re-branded my business back in June 2013.

My previous business was call Community Computer Repair and I handled the Migration personally with 301 page level redirects and no stone was left unturned.


Number 2: As far as directory listings are concerned. When I first started out web mastering when I created Community Computer Repair I was GREEN and did not keep a master list of all of the directories that submitted to and Login info details such as I do these days.

Yes, I can find all of these listings for community computer repair using White spark but that does not help me seeing how the Community Computer Repair email, and domain no longer exists seeing how I ended the hosting account 5 months after I initiated the website migration and everything had fully transitioned over with a couple of months "buffer" just to make sure.


Truth be told, I don't know if I am going to be able to edit/delete those prior business listings without a login password that I may or may not remember and have no way of retrieving forgotten password seeing how my previous domain no longer exists.

This is one of the main reasons why I am asking about deleting the Google Account and starting over.

Number 3: As an experiment to gain SEO wisdom I did the 40 Day Challenge on Warrior forum and experiment briefly for a month with article spinning a automated directory submission.

Although I did not do that much other than for sakes of experimenting, I did achieve a couple of thousand back links that May or may not have incurred the wrath of Penguin 2.1.

I don't think so but who the hell know with Google these days the way that they are MANIPULATING all web masters with their ongoing plethora of bull shit and never ending game of hop scotch backwards!


Number 4: The "location Not Supported" incident that lasted for an entire year was while I had the original business name "Community Computer Repair" and PC Medics On Call was not even created yet.

So you see, there is a number of factors that say it would be less work and time which = $$ to delete the account and get rid of the B.S once and for all and just start with a clean unmolested slate.

My only concern is what will happen if I decide to go that route? Will my business lose all historic data and be cast into oblivion or can I do this and incur a minor penalty stroke in slight ranking drop that would be very temporary?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Re: Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

Part of the problem is Google has almost 40,000 matches for your old name.
Google: "Community Computer Repair" "purdue" "wilmington"

Almost 12,000 have a different phone too: "Community Computer Repair" "(910) 228-9599"

You didn't mention changing phone. When did you do that? June too? Because both changes broke NAP.

The other problem is that you are violating guidelines by showing your address.

Starting a new listing with the same data and same settings will fix nothing and yes could cause a drop. I would fix the systemic problems before I would start a new account, which won't fix anything and could make it worse.

Does that make sense?

 

[Cam]

Re: Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

Yes, of course it makes sense. I was just on whitespark and I show that Community Computer Repair has 53 Citations 7 of which I have attempted to login to the account where I know for sure I used either info@communitycomputerrepair.com (No Longer exists) or communitycomputerrepair@gmail.com

I have have been able to access yellowbot at least but so far that is 1 success out of 7 and I am currently going down the list.

Many of these directories do not provide you a way to delete the account and that makes this an even more laborious process. How does one effectively deal with a situation such as this when confronted with a situation such as mine where I have added PC Medics On Call to these directories because of my inability to access older accounts from previous business name.




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I am moving to Charlotte, NC at the end of March (Yay!) so in essence will this put an end to my problems with the NAP situation? and the baggage from my mistakes on things that I did not do when I re-branded the business in regards to conflicting data? I would think that it would.

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In Regards to Violating Guidlines: Well, this is one of those instance where Google's dictatorship screws you one way or another!

I am aware of the guid lines but, what message does it send to customers when Google Maps does not display the location for a legitimate business?

So you see Linda, this is a catch 22 with no way out of it. I think the public perception would be of more value here so screw GOOGLE and why is that my prerogative to show my address gets trumped by google anyway?

It's funny, I did not see any VOTE taken to the PEOPLE making GOOGLE the Supreme Over Lord of the internet so why do these scumbags get away with this shit?

Moreover, why is that everyone just blindly endorses all of this crap to begin with and continues to let Google get away with all of this crap when anyone one of us would have been brought up on charges and jailed long ago for manipulating the public?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Re: Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

No unfortunately, moving is the same as name and phone change, it will break NAP so then you will have address change on top of the existing citation issues.

Plus since you are moving to a different city, Google will likely create a new listing and you'll have to mark the old one closed. (Which possibly is what should have been done when you rebranded.)

So if you DID start a new listing now, you'd end up with another new one after you move. So that would be 3 different CIDs in a year which would not be ideal.

You might want to just wait til after you move and the new listing is settled in, then pay a pro to try to correct all your citations for the previous name change, phone change and new address all in one fell swoop.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Re: Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

In Regards to Violating Guidlines: Well, this is one of those instance where Googles dictatorship screws you one way or another!

I am aware of the guid lines but, what message does it send to customers when Google Maps does not display the location for a legitimate business?

So you see Linda, this is a catch 22 with no way out of it. I think the public perception would be of more value here so screw GOOGLE

Cam, the problem with that is related to the fact that the listing can get deleted by Google if you don't comply with that rule. Then you are worse off.

 

[Cam]

Re: Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

No unfortunately, moving is the same as name and phone change, it will break NAP so then you will have address change on top of the existing citation issues.

Plus since you are moving to a different city, Google will likely create a new listing and you'll have to mark the old one closed. (Which possibly is what should have been done when you rebranded.)

So if you DID start a new listing now, you'd end up with another new one after you move. So that would be 3 different CIDs in a year which would not be ideal.

You might want to just wait til after you move and the new listing is settled in, then pay a pro to try to correct all your citations for the previous name change, phone change and new address all in one fell swoop.

So you are telling me that despite moving to Charlotte, NC some 300 miles away and changing all of the PC Medics On Call Citations to reflect this new address for the business I will still have the baggage from COMMUNITY COMPUTER REPAIR listings that are for Wilmington, NC?

I did Mark it as Closed and Even had Google Local on the Phone and made them do it so there was no conflict internally because of my experience with the Location Not Supported crap that lasted for a year.

NOTE: I have every intention of updating all submissions that I have a concise record for when I created PC Medics On Call when I make the transition to Charlotte....Just so you know, I am aware this needs to be done.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Re: Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

In Regards to Violating Guidlines: Well, this is one of those instance where Google's dictatorship screws you one way or another!

I am aware of the guid lines but, what message does it send to customers when Google Maps does not display the location for a legitimate business?

So you see Linda, this is a catch 22 with no way out of it. I think the public perception would be of more value here so screw GOOGLE and why is that my prerogative to show my address gets trumped by google anyway?

It's funny, I did not see any VOTE taken to the PEOPLE making GOOGLE the Supreme Over Lord of the internet so why do these scumbags get away with this shit?

Moreover, why is that everyone just blindly endorses all of this crap to begin with and continues to let Google get away with all of this crap when anyone one of us would have been brought up on charges and jailed long ago for manipulating the public?

Guess we posted at the same time earlier and I didn't see the comment above.

The page is not yours. You don't own it, pay for designers and programmers and drive traffic to it. The page is Google's. So if you want to keep your free page you have to abide by their rules. There is not much you/we can do about it. They are a company that offers a free service that has certain rules.

The reason for that rule, right or wrong, is that Google thinks if I find you on maps and drive across town expecting to see a retail shop or office location and end up at a house with no business signage and no one home it would frustrate the user and be a bad user experience.

I did Mark it as Closed and Even had Google Local on the Phone and made them do it so there was no conflict internally because of my experience with the Location Not Supported crap that lasted for a year.

You didn't mention that so I had no way of knowing.

 

[Cam]

Re: Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

Linda, would you mind answering the post that I made immediately above your last post so that I can get your thoughts on that please?

Also too, I have been down the list that WhiteSpark generated for my previous business name and 98% of those directories do not recognize either of the 2 email addresses that I would have used to create those listings.

I am wondering if this due to the fact that when I first started the business I was advertizing with the AT&T YELLOW Pages and this could be attributed to something that they did on my behalf as a customer.

That would be the only explanation for those directories not recognizing my email addresses seeing how at the time I was new to having a website and had only 1 email address for the site for the longest time and of course the gmail account but that is not recognized either.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Re: Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

Sorry I don't have answers for you on that. I don't deal with citations at all, mainly just specialize in the direct Place page issues.

 

[Cam]

Re: Delete "Google Account" and start "NEW" wil it destroy your Rankings?

Sorry I don't have answers for you on that. I don't deal with citations at all, mainly just specialize in the direct Place page issues.

Thank you for all of your assistance Linda, you have been very helpful.

The citation deal, I could not imagine that the directory listings that I cannot access to change that were under the OLD Business name would have any impact on anything when I move to Charlotte, NC and to be honest, there is nothing that I can do about this other than what I have done all day trying to clean all of that up.

I'm not going to put anymore thought or effort into the CCR Citation deal seeing how I am moving.

I went through every single citation source all (53) and with the exception of 4 they all said that the email address was not in the database so, it's apparent that this is fallout from the shit service that AT&T provides with everything that they do.

I have an acute memory and most of those places, I do not recall listing my business on and a wasted day of effort confirms that I did not.