Google Maps Business Name Doesn't Match Google Business Profile

[dakotawilliams]

Hey everyone, a client of ours recently moved offices, and so we've been paying even closer attention to things going on with their local rankings and Google Business Profile. We recently realized that even though the full business name, which on their GBP and what's registered with the secretary of state is "Last Name, Last Name & Last Name, Keyword, LLC" (to keep things anonymous), is not showing up in Google Maps. The keyword has been part of their business name for over a year and Google has never given us problems since that is the legitimate business name. However, we recently noticed a drop in local rankings, and when doing some investigating we realized that in Google Maps, a search for the business name returns a suggested result WITHOUT the ", Keyword, LLC" part of the name. Has anyone experienced something like this before? Or does anyone have any clue as to what would cause Google Maps to truncate the business name? The interesting part of this is that the client has a second office location, and that office's full name generates when searching on Google Maps, so this problem is only for one office. Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Based on the description it sounds like someone is likely suggesting an edit to remove the keyboard part. You can go back into the dashboard and simply add it back.

 

[JS Girard]

Sometimes the display name will not change when you change it internally in the dashboard. I have seen this occur, yes. Many times in fact. This is not a "google accepting suggestions" thing because they show it to you when that is the case, in orange and all that. No, I'm talking of the dashboard showing a name, but Maps and search plainly displaying a different name. We've seen it most commonly with google-generated profiles that were later claimed.

Usually my go to try and fix this is to make a suggestion as a user. In my experience, if you do that to get the display to be the same as in the dashboard, this will be accepted 90% of the time and the problem will be solved. So I would start with trying that.

Now the tricky part is—prepare for Google Tomfoolery! —sometimes Google says it accepts the suggestion and still won't change the display name. I refer to these as "locked name" because clearly something in the backend prevents the name from being actually displayed. In these cases we in the past had to give up because the name change involved the client demanding we add improper keywords to begin with. Should this happen to you, however, this is a clear and obvious case of Google Support request.

 

[dakotawilliams]

Based on the description it sounds like someone is likely suggesting an edit to remove the keyboard part. You can go back into the dashboard and simply add it back.

Appreciate the response. I should've added that on the backend the correct name is displayed, and we actually changed it a few times to try and see if maybe changing the name would push the name live, but that didn't work. Think we'll just have to go the support route

 

[dakotawilliams]

Sometimes the display name will not change when you change it internally in the dashboard. I have seen this occur, yes. Many times in fact. This is not a "google accepting suggestions" thing because they show it to you when that is the case, in orange and all that. No, I'm talking of the dashboard showing a name, but Maps and search plainly displaying a different name. We've seen it most commonly with google-generated profiles that were later claimed.

Usually my go to try and fix this is to make a suggestion as a user. In my experience, if you do that to get the display to be the same as in the dashboard, this will be accepted 90% of the time and the problem will be solved. So I would start with trying that.

Now the tricky part is—prepare for Google Tomfoolery! —sometimes Google says it accepts the suggestion and still won't change the display name. I refer to these as "locked name" because clearly something in the backend prevents the name from being actually displayed. In these cases we in the past had to give up because the name change involved the client demanding we add improper keywords to begin with. Should this happen to you, however, this is a clear and obvious case of Google Support request.

Thanks for the detailed response! Google tomfoolery is one of the biggest reasons that I don't want to go crazy with suggesting edits and things (in case they suspend the profile). I haven't tried suggesting an edit as a third-party user though. I'll try that, and if that doesn't work then I'll reach out to GBP Support. Thanks again!

 

[JS Girard]

Thanks for the detailed response! Google tomfoolery is one of the biggest reasons that I don't want to go crazy with suggesting edits and things (in case they suspend the profile). I haven't tried suggesting an edit as a third-party user though. I'll try that, and if that doesn't work then I'll reach out to GBP Support. Thanks again!

Well, I didn't say it right up, but I make all suggestions with my personal account. For several reasons:

• I have less email traffic on my personal account than the agency account, so it's easier to keep track of the emails
• The agency account is used by several people, so it's less risk of someone else deleting or marking them read.
• Easier to keep track of the suggested changes in the map interface (only way to know if they were full-oon rejected) if I don't have other people's suggestions muddying the water
• Just less confusion in general for my coworkers using the agency account.