Selling business with practitioner listing

[Creativedge]

My agency is working with three dentists who are in similar situations: One has recently purchased a practice from another dentist, and two are selling their practices to new dentists (who may end up replacing them as our new clients).

Part of what they're buying/selling is the strength of the practices' online reputation. But, in each of these cases, the Google listing is under the doctor's name (they are all solo practitioners).

What's the best way to handle this? It's been suggested that, since the original practitioner is retiring, we can just change the name on the Google My Business listing. Would this cause any problems? (I imagine this isn't how Google would prefer it to be done...)

 

[Yan Gilbert]

How about if you first change the name from the practitioner listing to a practice listing name? That way the transfer makes more sense than a personal listing.

 

[Creativedge]

How about if you first change the name from the practitioner listing to a practice listing name? That way the transfer makes more sense than a personal listing.

Thanks for the suggestion, Yan. This is what we were discussing at the office.

 

[Yan Gilbert]

Take a look at the reviews. They might be mentioning the Dentist's name specifically so it may look odd if there are many references.

 

[tedchan]

We see this all the time on our site (a directory) and built something easy to change it. We do recommend you make it very clear in the profile ownership has changed as we've seen some reviews come in where the client was surprised the dentist with strong reviews was retired.

 

[adammaxum]

This is a tricky situation. I assume the dentists office has a google listing for the practice itself too right?

If not, just change the dentists name to the practice name. Then update the directories across the web to match.

You may lose rankings (f you were ranking), but the reviews should remain....usually.

 

[Creativedge]

None of these offices had practice names, so there has only been a single Google listing for each, under the dentist's name.

So far, it does sound like the best idea is for them to change to a practice name prior to retiring. (I believe, in two of the cases, the original dentist will be working alongside the new dentist for a period before leaving the practice.)

 

[JoshuaMackens]

None of these offices had practice names, so there has only been a single Google listing for each, under the dentist's name.

So far, it does sound like the best idea is for them to change to a practice name prior to retiring. (I believe, in two of the cases, the original dentist will be working alongside the new dentist for a period before leaving the practice.)

That's your best bet.