Best practice for cleaning up multiple Google Places listings and multiple Google accounts when logins were lost.

[rhgraves65]

We are an inbound marketing agency, most of our clients are not relying on local seo.  I have a pretty good understanding of it when starting fresh but not so much in joining a "movie in progress" kind of scenario.  Recently we've brought on two clients who have had their websites in place for awhile, have made small attempts at marketing themselves online over the years and its resulted in multiple Google places listings, variations of the company names (one of them changed their name), worried there are yet more accounts out there they aren't aware of, etc (analytics, and others from well intentioned employees and past service providers - no internal leadership at the company level).  In reading Google help forums I'm seeing some recently having their accounts suspended when they try to clean things up - in one case a person setup a new Google account thinking he would start fresh and in trying to claim listings, get rid of duplicates, etc. his account was suspended.  What is the CURRENT recommended course of action in situations like these? With all the changes going on with Google, I don't know which route to take and have combed the Internet reading articles about this (including Google's resources) - would like some current real world advise.

[MiriamEllis]

My pleasure, Lisa, and I really like the Google=IRS analogy. Agreed! Hang in there. I know how you feel.

[rhgraves65]

This helps immensely!  I've seen references to the report a problem option but varying experiences with it so I like having some other tasks combined with it.  There do seem to be a lot of people that appear to be doing the sensible things but still not having the most desirable outcomes (we just did a blog piece asking the question "Is Google the IRS of the Internet for Keyword Ranking?" since it does feel a lot like trying to straighten out tax issues

Thanks so much for such a thoughtful and precise answer!!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Lisa,

I would recommend that you try to have a phone call with Google staff. Follow this process.

1. First, find all duplicate listings and click the 'report a problem' link on the right hand side. This will take you through the report a problem trouble shooter.

2. Then, I would wait a couple of weeks and if nothing changes, use this troubleshooter:

http://support.google.com/places/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1386120&page=ts.cs

Choose this option, as I am presuming you've got incorrect data issues spread out over a variety of duplicates:

Listing data, including title, address, phone, URL, categories, hours, description, or coupons

Then click the 'yes' button.

You will get a phone option and can hopefully have a conversation with a live person at Google regarding your multiple issues with the client. If they give you advice, I would then check up on the validity of it by visiting the Google and Your Business forum to see if it matches similar advice being given there by other Google employees (http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/business).

Regarding claiming an existent listing, please read the following:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/05/17/basic-places-practices-update-how-do-you-claim-an-owner-verified-listing/

And be sure to follow all of the links in the above piece to get the full picture from Mike Blumenthal on this. Hope this helps!

[rhgraves65]

Thank you for such a detailed answer, this is my instinct too, just start fresh but when I read in the forums all the problems some businesses are having I thought I'd better explore a little bit just to make sure I wasn't missing an opportunity to do it some other way.

[Raydon]

My experience was that mergers and removals take so long and can be very very tricky (google made a huge mistake and deleted / merged a profile we had asked to keep and claim later-awaiting for mail-that had a lot of reviews on it and it was gone with no undo in sight.

I would create and confirm a new listing and get a google plus page for it with confirmation, link website and confirm, and then attempt to merge /delete anything old and bad.

I had a google rep on the phone for adwords and analytics and asked them to help me with this issue to avoid just the headache i was dreading and it resulted in them removing what i wanted them to keep and saving what i wanted them to remove. i even made it clear in back and forth emails with her in writing.

so just be careful, maybe if reviews are not important, request closure and merger of all listings and once all are gone and you can confirm, immediately recreate a clean and official permanent account and keep login access somewhere findable and safe for future.

I know a lot of my clients who have issues with not knowing which email their adwords, their social or their google places or plus accounts are connected to.... its a pain to do anything for them when the time comes...