I have 2 locations and 6+ Google Business pages... How can I combine the duplicates without losing maps rankings?

[formandfunctionagency]

I have 2 locations and 6+ different Google Business pages due to a company merger and automatic page creation. Some of the GMB even pages rank in maps above the ones we use for certain terms and most bring traffic to my site, but I know the dupes are hurting our maps rankings. Is there a way I can consolidate these pages by combining them? Or am I better off just biting the bullet and deleting the pages I don't want to use?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Foothills!

Good advice from Donna, and I highly recommend that you go through Joy Hawkins article http://www.joyannehawkins.com/the-proper-way-to-deal-with-duplicates-in-google-my-business/ with fine toothed comb before you make a move in any direction.

The article does a super job of explaining deletion, merging, etc. and links to another resource for understanding moving reviews from one entity to another. I believe it will be exactly what you're looking for!

[formandfunctionagency]

Hi Donna, thanks for your response. The additional pages were all either automatically created or created by staff in error and don't really add value to searchers. I'd prefer that only the two location pages we actually keep up with were the only ones which displayed in search, but I'm hesitant to delete the duplicates, as some still receive search traffic and were even verified in the past.

Is there a good way to combine listings without deleting the dupes altogether?

[DonnaDuncan]

What differentiates the 6 GMB pages from one another? You said you have two locations, so it can't just be location.

You're going to have to standardize on a single name / address / phone number (NAP) combination for each of your two different locations. Then you'll need to inventory all the incoming citations you have to all 6 GMB listings and update or delete the ones that are inaccurate. Lastly, you'll need to remove the obsolete GMB pages. It's tedious and time consuming, but it needs to be done.

Whitespark offers a highly effective citation audit and cleanup service with a couple of different price points if you don't have the time but do have funding.