Yelp is displaying the wrong business page

[randy]

I'm usually happy with my citation service but they've created a problem I need to fix now. Instead of updating the address on a client's claimed Yelp page as I ordered, they created a new page, and now the new, unclaimed page is showing up in the client's Yelp search results instead of the claimed page. How can I get the claimed page to display instead? Why would Yelp (which is littered with unclaimed pages) decide to display the empty unclaimed page instead of the more complete claimed page? How does it make these decisions?

I don't work with Yelp much so I'd appreciate any insights from those of you more experienced with Yelp. A few of your questions answered in advance:

1) I'm talking about Yelp's internal search. Both pages appear in Google's organic search results (branded search), but the correct claimed page at least displays higher.
2) The client recently moved across the country (US). Both pages have the new Vermont address, but the old address on the claimed page was in California.
3) The business owner's name is part of the business name (e.g. John Doe Chiropractic), but the new page was created with only the owner's name (John Doe), so the page names are a little different.


Thank you.

 

[Scott BLV]

You can use the yelp "suggest an edit" feature on the new listing to report it as a duplicate. "This is a duplicate of another business on Yelp". You can find the "suggest an edit" button under the address on the listing. Make sure you are logged in as a Yelp user when reporting & Yelp will email you with the status. This should get the duplicate pulled down within a few days.

 

[randy]

You're awesome. Thank you.

 

[Peter W]

Yelp is showing the new unclaimed page because it sees a closer name match ("John Doe" vs "John Doe Chiropractic") and recent address activity as signals that the new page might be more relevant.

To quickly fix this:
1) Claim the new page.
2) Reach out to Yelp support to merge the listings into the original, complete page.
3) Double-check that the business name on Yelp matches exactly what people typically search for.

 

[randy]

The situation seems to have resolved itself, but I didn't do anything, so maybe the citation service took care of it (as I requested BTW). The new unclaimed URL now redirects to the correct claimed page, so the unwanted page is gone. I don't know what happened, but I'm not arguing. Thank you both for the advice. I'll bookmark your posts.