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Hi Ryan,

That's a difficult situation! Usually, what I've found in this situation is that you have to spend an hour or two backtracking to discover where the name of one business is being conflated with the address/phone/website of the other. This might exist on the company's website or website, or it might exist in citations, or elsewhere. In many cases, this type of conflation is what has caused the confusion on Google's part. It's really important when you have a franchise that you've done everything you possibly can to differentiate the various branches, including different addresses, phone numbers, landing page URLs or websites, content, citations, etc. Even then, Google can sometimes become confused about this scenario and begin merging down details. So, if you can backtrack to a source for this confusion and correct it, that may resolve the issue.

You can also try to contact Google directly about this (go here and click the contact us button https://support.google.com/business/?hl=en&rd=1#topic=4539639) but you may very well get the answer, "That result is generate algorithmically and we can't do anything about it." Might be worth a try anyway.

Hi There!

Sorry that wasn't what you needed. Basically, no, so far as I know, there is no obvious visual signal looking through Bing Places that a listing has been verified. If you click on the 'report a problem' link at the bottom of a Bing Place page, it takes you to a page that says 'Are you the business owner, claim this listing', but unfortunately, it appears to do this whether the listing is claimed or not. So, that's kind of weird. As an experiment, you could attempt to go through the claiming process of a listing you are curious about and see if it eventually stops you with a 'this is already claimed' message. This is the only test I can think of to run. Hope it's at least somewhat helpful to know you're not missing some obvious visual signal. There just doesn't appear to be one, nor can I find any documentation that such a signal exists.

Hi Eport12!

A couple of suggestions:

1. I highly recommend checking out GetFiveStars, which I've personally test-driven and have been extremely impressed by. The product was co-founded by Local SEO guru Mike Blumenthal and the rate of innovation of the tool has been amazing.

2. I would be absolutely positive that whatever service you sign up for, it does not auto-populate review stars in reviews. One of the larger ORM software companies, Birdeye, recently fell out of Google's good graces for this practice and the case is serving as a warning now to everyone in the industry: be sure automated review requests do not auto-generate review stars. So, as you're considering your options, do keep that little proviso in mind.

Hey Thomas!

It's good on a thread like this for the community to provide a variety of recommendations. I'm glad you shared what you like about ReputationStacker. Always helpful to have multiple choices!

Hi Billy,

Ranking drops in Google's local packs usually boil down to one of these 3 causes:

1. Internal changes to Google's algo or filters that cause results to be re-ordered

2. Being surpassed by more active or powerful competitors so that you previous authority is no longer strong enough in comparison to the authority of your competitors

3. Negative outcomes of issues like duplicate listings, merges or spammy activity on the part of the business owner suddenly coming into play

I'm stating these three things quite broadly, and while I don't know if there have been any recent changes to Google's algo or filters in your industry/geography, it does sound like you are already aware of the fact that you are lacking in authority (point 2, above). Things like citation inconsistency can definitely drain away your authority and this can become even more apparent as your competitors get their businesses into better shape and begin to surpass you because they are stronger/cleaner/more active. It also sounds like you are aware of some negative issues (point 3, above) like reviewing your own business, which Google would consider to be spammy. Obviously, you shouldn't do things like that, and it's good that you removed the review:)

Likely, your ranking drop is the result of a combination of several different factors. Hopefully, going step by step through the article I linked to in my earlier reply will help you troubleshoot a number of possible issues. Ideally, what you want to shoot for looks like this:

1. I'm running the fastest loading, most user-friendly site with the best possible content in my industry/geography.

2. My site is well optimized for Local, but is not over-optimized. All of by basics (like title tags, headers, etc.) make sense to human visitors and gently highlight my core terms without going overboard.

3. My citations are consistent and clean around the web.

4. My Google+ Local page is perfectly optimized and obeys all guidelines. I've chosen the right categories.

5. I am not violating any of Google's guidelines by any of my marketing or SEO practices.

6. I have checked for possible duplicate and merged Google listings and have none of them.

7. I am earning real Google-based reviews at a slow, steady rate, rather than in big, quick chunks. My reviews are in alignment with Google's policies. I have more reviews than my competitors do  - but I don't have a TON more. My review profile looks and is natural.

8. I'm earning diverse, genuine reviews on other important review sites.

9. I'm socially active in the right places, engaging with my customers where it matter to them most.

10. I'm earning links naturally, based on merit.

There's more to it than this, of course, but this would be a 10-step rundown of what I'd consider to be a local business doing the right things to earn the kind of authority over time that leads to high visibility in the local packs.

Hope this is helpful!

Hi Pau,

Thanks for contributing to this thread.

I do want to offer a very serious warning against ever buying reviews. Doing so can lead to:

1. Legal action against the brand

2. Public humiliation and irreversible brand damage

3. Removal of local business listings

Purchasing reviews is an act that has the intention of deceiving the public. It's not an honest business practice, and any potential reward will never be worth the risk of lawsuits and loss of the public's trust.

The good news is, good businesses need never purchase reviews. Deliver a quality experience to customers, follow the guidelines of the various platforms as to how you can/can't ask for reviews, and you should be just fine.

I totally understand, Laura. It's really dreadful to see your hard-earned reviews just disappear, at the stroke of a pen from Google!

Something I hope will help to think about ... it's consistently found by surveys that well over 1/2 of customers will leave reviews if asked. It's just finding the best way to ask that's the challenge. If your consumer segment is particularly tough, you might want to consider checking out software like GetFiveStars, that will help you systematize review acquisition.

Hi Anthony!

Thanks for coming to the community with your question. Please, let me know if you're able to share your website/actual business with us here. Then we can all take a look at your specific scenario instead of just making random guesses.

In addition to that query, can you please explain:

1. How many locations you have

2. Are the locations in different towns or all in the same town?

3. Did you notice a ranking drop for this problem location, or has it never managed to rank? If a sudden drop, can you pinpoint the date? If it has never ranked, can you estimate the age of its GMB listing?

Thanks, and looking forward to your replies!

Good question, Wick!

You know, this really does get into the murky water. We can state the dilemma this way:

1. Google wants a precise, accurate address, as Linda has so correctly referenced. Linda is completely on the money about the use of a suite number where no such suite exists falling afoul of Google's clear guidelines. If I walk up to your door and can't find Suite B, then I've been misled.

2. So, if the business owner follows Google's guideline and doesn't add a non-existent suite, then the reality has to be faced that the risk of merging and duplicates may be increased by adhering to the guidelines. This is the tough part. If I live with my sister and she runs her yoga business out of the same building I'm running my photography studio in, we are both running the risk of Google jumbling our listings up.

3. So, where does this leave us? Basically, it leaves us with possibly having problems with our presence on Google because we are abiding by Google's rules. That's a rather imperfect situation, of course, but is the reality. And it leaves me wondering things like:

• Whether Google actually would have a problem with a suite number legally obtained from postal or local authorities, even if I don't put up a dividing wall and a second front door for the second business. Wikipedia defines a 'secondary suite' this way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_suite ; it normally has a second entrance. But is this a legal definition? And, is it Google's definition? In my hypothetical scenario, could I technically have a suite with a shared entrance and no interior partition dividing me from my sister's yoga business? I honestly don't know if there is a rock solid answer to this.

• And, here's one Linda would be better able to answer than I, given her position as a TC in Google's own forum: in instances in which a cluster of businesses have no suites, how is Google's track record of merging looking these days? I've heard they've gotten better at this than the formerly were, but it seems like it has been some time since I've seen much commenting on this topic.

Just some thoughts. I would welcome further discussion on this thread from all community members!