What to do with a GMB listing after purchasing a business and moving there

[kathleen.rhodes]

I have a heating and air conditioning client who purchased another HVAC company and has moved into the "old" company's physical location. Due to his increasing business success and growth, my client has moved many times in the past. It's been a challenge to get most of his online directory listings updated to what has been, up until now, his current address. So, now we have another move.

My question has to do with what to do about the GMB listing for the "old" company that was purchased. I don't really want the business marked as "Permanently Closed" due to the fact that there is still an HVAC company in that location, just with a new name. The old company only has one 4-star Google review, with no verbiage at all.

Should we request "ownership" of the old listing, update the name to the new name, and then ask Google to merge the listings?!?

Thanks in advance for your recommendations.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Kathleen, you could try to update the old listing and request merge but more often than not Google won't do it because they can see the edit history on the listing and will go with the old information.

What you can try is reaching out to GMB support and explaining that you purchased the business and took it over. And now you need the listing removed from maps because it causes confusion for new customers and would cause more confusion if marked closed. This works, but depends on the support rep.

Let us know how it goes.

 

[kathleen.rhodes]

Thanks, @Colan Nielsen - I'll go that route and let you know how it goes. I'm not sure the client has access to the old listing, so we might have to request ownership first.