Local NAP Change Question

[TheSEOGuy]

I have a client that has recently changed their name only. Their address and phone number are the same. What I am wondering is will it be better to have the listing removed and create a new one from scratch or reclaim the existing listing, change the name and send out a new pin?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi SEOGuy,

From what I remember, rebrands are handled like addresses changes now. You no longer need to close old and open new.

You said "or reclaim the existing listing, change the name and send out a new pin".

You can no longer reclaim a listing and not sure why you would need to. All you need to do is edit the existing listing that's in dash and yes it should require a new pin.

 

[Broland]

Just like Linda said, change the name in your dashboard.. BUT first you should find and update all citations and mentions of the business you possibly can. You want to do it rather quickly from time you start and then give it about a week so most can be recrawled. Then update your Google listing. This is how you can minimize loss in rankings.

 

[Perrytheimp]

Hi all,

I am slightly confused and wanted to double check before I go ahead. Many moons ago I tried to change a doctors Google Plus Local page name ( Dr x) to the actual brand name ( Calvins Physio) so it matched the citations, website and so on.

I contemplated deoptimizing the doctors page ( Dr x) and working on a the brand page ( Calvins Physio), but due to the sheer number of reviews I ended up leaving it alone, and all worked out well.

However I am recently reading there is no need to close down a listing when re branding it can be done straight from the dashboard. Does this mean I can finally make the easy switch between doctor and brand page?

I am guessing it's only applicable to brand name changes and I have to keep the doctors page.

 

[TheSEOGuy]

Thank you Linda and Broland,

That's what we thought so I appreciate the confirmation.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi all,

I am slightly confused and wanted to double check before I go ahead. Many moons ago I tried to change a doctors Google Plus Local page name ( Dr x) to the actual brand name ( Calvins Physio) so it matched the citations, website and so on.

I contemplated deoptimizing the doctors page ( Dr x) and working on a the brand page ( Calvins Physio), but due to the sheer number of reviews I ended up leaving it alone, and all worked out well.

However I am recently reading there is no need to close down a listing when re branding it can be done straight from the dashboard. Does this mean I can finally make the easy switch between doctor and brand page?

I am guessing it's only applicable to brand name changes and I have to keep the doctors page.

Hey Perry, that issue is different and quite complicated. I don't want to take SEOGuy's thread off track and get it mixed up with what I need to tell you as we might end up going back and forth a few times to hammer it out.

So could you please copy it to a new thread in the duplicates section?

 

[TonyIsSocial]

New Name, same address & phone

Hey SEOGuy, how did this turn out for you? I'm actually doing this with myself.

My specific concern however is the Google+ URL for the business page.

I'm changing from "Social Listings" to "Cartography Marketing".

My Google+ Local listing change was easy.

However, I still have 2 URLs to deal with:

plus.google.com/+SocialListingsClearwater
youtube.com/user/SocialListings

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Tony,

You can't change the custom URL so I think you are stuck with it. That's one of the reasons in a post at LocalU, Mike Blumenthal said not to claim your custom URL.

<a href="http://localu.org/blog/alternative-google-plus-custom-urls/">An Alternative to Google Plus 'Custom' URLs - Local University</a>

What is bad is that once you have accepted the custom URL, you can?t change it. Ever. You are essentially stuck with it. Google currently offers no way to rebrand your custom URL, and if you decide to change business names you are stuck with the ?custom? URL referring to your old business name...

 

[TonyIsSocial]

Hmm... Since there isn't much sweat equity in the old brand, This may be the 1 off case where it'll be best to just delete the old and start over. The 500 followers on g+ was the result of circle sharing which I wasn't very fond of anyway, I was just exploring g+ still.

Thanks for the localu heads up. I commented over there as well.

 

[Louis Nava]

curious, I wouldn't think it would hurt to keep the URL the same as it's always been. It's purely cosmetic and who looks at the URL anyway? lol

 

[TonyIsSocial]

Yea, from now on I'm not going to bother with the URL change. It felt fun and exclusive at first.

 

[Linda Buquet]

I am slightly confused and wanted to double check before I go ahead. Many moons ago I tried to change a doctors Google Plus Local page name ( Dr x) to the actual brand name ( Calvins Physio) so it matched the citations, website and so on.

I contemplated deoptimizing the doctors page ( Dr x) and working on a the brand page ( Calvins Physio), but due to the sheer number of reviews I ended up leaving it alone, and all worked out well.

However I am recently reading there is no need to close down a listing when re branding it can be done straight from the dashboard. Does this mean I can finally make the easy switch between doctor and brand page?

I am guessing it's only applicable to brand name changes and I have to keep the doctors page.

Perry, I don't think you ever started a new thread on this so wanted to tell you rebranding is changing name of same entity and yes can and should just edit in dash.

But you are right a Dr and a Practice are separate entities. You can't delete the Dr or change from Dr name to practice name. Need to minimize the Dr listing so won't hurt practice in search.

UNLESS it's a solo practitioner and he plans to stay that way. Then you can get support to merge them. But again this will get complicated to explain and going back and forth would throw off SEOGuy's thread but just wanted to at least address the main issues of your Q.

Please start new thread if Qs about how to minimize Dr or how to get the 2 listings merged into 1.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Just like Linda said, change the name in your dashboard.. BUT first you should find and update all citations and mentions of the business you possibly can. You want to do it rather quickly from time you start and then give it about a week so most can be recrawled. Then update your Google listing. This is how you can minimize loss in rankings.

This.

Did this for a client about a month ago, no loss in ranking. Still #1.