Remove or Keep Closed Locations in GMB?

[djcoppedge]

Hey there local gurus-

I haven't seen any official stance from GMB on the subject, but what is everyone's opinion on keeping permanently closed locations in a GMB account? I work with several large multi-location businesses that have had locations closed down over the years. Is there an advantage of keeping those "old" locations in the GMB profile vs. deleting them out of the account to "clean up the dashboard"?

The issue that has triggered this is that one of my clients has fewer than 500 "open" locations, but the additional "closed" locations puts it over the 500 mark, which makes the account ineligible for the new "bulk review" monitoring feature. Wondering if there's a downside to releasing closed locations "into the wild".

Thanks!

 

[Phil Rozek]

@djcoppedge, in general you should close those pages.

When a closed location is near an open location, and the customers who went to the old location probably go to the new one, you'll probably want to have Google mark the closed location's GMB page as "moved." That way, people who search specifically for an old location won't just see a "Permanently Closed" page and wonder what to do next. Rather, they'll be redirected to the GMB page for a location that's still open.

 

[djcoppedge]

@Phil Rozek it's generally the case that the client has just gotten out of certain markets all together so there wouldn't be any other locations around.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@djcoppedge, given what you say, there's probably no reason to try the (questionable) "hermit crab" strategy of leaving behind GMB pages for locations that aren't staffed anymore. So I'd suggest deleting those pages from your GMB account, but just deleting them won't remove them from the map. You'll need to mark them as "permanently closed," too.