Merging Solo Practitioner and Business Listing

[JasonKhoo]

[posted on Google community, but think it may have been removed so adding here]

In the town of Sammamish, we have 3 orthodontists. One of our competitors has a business listing and a practitioner listing. He is a solo practitioner and has both a business listing and a practitioner listing. My understanding is that medical practitioners can have a listing for themselves and their office IF there is multiple doctors. In this case, Dr. Trujillo is the only practitioner.

Since there are only three orthodontists in the city, with one competitor taking two of the three spots, we think its a little unfair and would like an equal shot at the map pack.


Business Listing

Practitioner Listing

Google's policy says it's "best practice" so I'm not sure if this is something that is counted or if its perfectly allowed in the rules, but would like to know if this is something I can get Google to merge.

Jason Khoo

 

[JoyHawkins]

If a solo practitioner wants 2 listings (one for the practice and one for the practitioner), Google allows it. They will only merge the 2 if the business requests it.

So if you want to set up another one to try and get 2 spots you can. The tricky thing is that now you have 2 places to generate reviews on so it's definitely more work.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

In theory they should only have one listing if they are a solo practitioner.

However as you said it's really more of a best practice instead of a strict guideline.

You could try sending it over to GMB support but the other challenge is that in order for two listings to be merged one of them should be unverified. Since you don't own or manage the listings you have no way to do this.

 

[JasonKhoo]

Thanks Colan and Joy! I guess what I'll do is put this up into the Google My Business forums and see if I can get someone from support to help us do so.

But in all practicality, we're just going to have to overcome the two separate listings.