What to do when one business acquires another and moves into their location?

[lincolnchan]

Hi friends,

I've been doing some research online and found a bunch of mixed opinions about this, so I thought I would throw it out to the local community.

We have a client who has acquired another business, AND THEN moved into [the acquired business'] location and vacated their old location. What should I do with the old business' GMB? I've seen...

• Change the name of the old business to the new business, and have 2 listings for the same business hoping Google will merge them down the road.
• Leave the name of the old business but change the contact information to the new business
• Just mark the old business as permanently closed

What say ye?

 

[hajnasiewicz]

HI LincolnChan, I have some experience with this and here's what we did:

1) Claim the new location and rename it, updating all of the pertinent information
2) The vacated location I marked as closed.
3) In our case, the vacated location is usually sold to another business, and then that location is eventually requested to transfer to the new business for administering their GMB account.

I hope this helps!

 

[lincolnchan]

Thanks Carolyn,

So I should mention that we had already updated the moving location to the new address. That's their main brand that they are keeping moving forward, and has the majority of their reviews, so we didn't want to mark it as closed.

I guess the worry I have is if someone searches for the old (acquired) business, and see that it's marked as permanently closed, they'll look for another business even though the old team has migrated over to the acquiring business.

 

[hajnasiewicz]

Thanks Carolyn,

So I should mention that we had already updated the moving location to the new address. That's their main brand that they are keeping moving forward, and has the majority of their reviews, so we didn't want to mark it as closed.

I guess the worry I have is if someone searches for the old (acquired) business, and see that it's marked as permanently closed, they'll look for another business even though the old team has migrated over to the acquiring business.

Hmmm, I see what your saying. So instead, perhaps, don't mark it as closed and wait until Google notifies you of a possible duplicate listing, then you can follow the instructions they provide. There might be an expert here who can give you better steps in this process based on your situation.

 

[lincolnchan]

Thanks Carolyn I'll give that a try

 

[Lanerizz]

I have a similar situation with a convenience store where our client bought the building. We do not have access to the old listing, new listing has been live for awhile and already ranks well.

Same address of course, basically just replacing the sign outside for the new company that acquired the building.

Confused why we would not list the old one as Closed? Wouldn't that make it disappear from the rankings which is what we want, or should we be marking it as a duplicate instead?

Would assume two listing at the exact same address would be a bad thing, but is the logic that we're taking up more real estate then and driving people to the location, and its not an issue until Google makes it one?

Appreciate any advice.