Thread: Merging Google+ Business Page and Google+ Local Listing (via separate accounts)

Hey all!

I was just wondering if anyone has had experience in trying to merge a listing where the Google+ Business Page and the Google+ Local listing (Places listing) were housed in separate accounts.

Currently, I would advise to not merge listings where the business page and local listing are in separate accounts. I can share with you my current findings as of today:

I had utilized the account which housed the Google+ Business Page (let's call this Account A) to merge and send the verification mailing from. After verifying the listing this morning I viewed it and it displayed the checkmark indicating the listing was verified. Also, it showed the updated 4 tabs (Posts, About, Images, Videos) also indicating the fully updated listing.

Then, I logged into the account which housed the Google+ Local listing (with the Places dashbord, let's call this Account B). After getting to the dashboard I clicked "View my listing" and it brought me to the original listing that was live throughout the past couple of months.

After doing a search in the 'Maps' tab on the business name and geo the results showed 2 listings. Thus, the verification created a duplicate listing.

The differences in the listings were as such:

Account A was the duplicate, new listing - the "About" tab showed only the address and phone number. The only thing it displayed was the images I uploaded prior to verification and the checkmark indicating the listing was verified. More importantly, no reviews showed on the page.

Account B showed the original listing as it was prior to the merge. The about tab was completely filled out (with the description and categories). Also, this listing did not show the verified checkmark. Furthermore, this listing showed the reviews.

Something I did not check is if there was a notification email in Account B stating something like "Someone is trying to merge your local listing with this Google+ Business Page". I will check on this tomorrow and provide an update.

Also, it may be too soon to make an educated guess on whether or not to merge a listing where the business page and local page are housed in separate accounts - if you'd like I will monitor the activity and provide updates on this. Though, as of now, I would advise to not do it. Currently, the 2 major takeaways are that it (1) it creates a duplicate listing and (2) the reviews do not show on the verified listing.

If anyone else has experience with this please chime in! Also, I'm open to any questions and/or concerns. Just thought I'd share my early findings before anyone decides to do this out of curiosity with their clients.

Hope this information was beneficial.

Thanks,
Matt

Hey Matt, what you are describing sound similar to this thread.
https://productforums.google.com/d/t...ddg/discussion

Can you take a look at that situation and see if it seems similar?
I escalated to Google and they are looking into it. But I didn't think about diff accounts potentially being the issue til I read your thread here. So I just asked the OP if he had listings in diff accounts too.

Hey Linda,

Everything is identical to this situation. The only instance which is different is when he states:

"The google maps search results only bring up my old google places page and not the verified google+ page."

(Last I checked the maps search brought up both listings but this was a business name + geo search.) I bet he is doing KW searches which are showing the original listing (because the new listing has no categories).

And, I cannot confirm this statement in my situation:

"I've also lost a significant amount of page rank for my keywords "san antonio bail bonds" because my website doesn't appear to have a real link to my google places page."

Hope this was helpful.

-Matt

Thanks Matt, I just alerted Jade to your situation here as well, so hopefully they can figure out what's up.

Thanks Linda!

Hey Matt, the other person at the G forum just replied and said NOT diff accts.

"They were both under the same account. I created the G+ page using the same account as the Place page to make sure there wouldn't be any problems with it later down the road."

Then in the private G forum someone said another similar problem was reported yesterday but he didn't link to it and I don't have time to dig.

Will let you know if I find anything out. Or if you want to post your deets on the G forum, then let me know the link and I'll escalate and see if I can help.

Several users are reporting 500 errors when trying to access google.com/local/verify to enter their PIN as well. Google is aware and working on it.

So as I kinda warned, this is an early release and I expected it to be a little buggy.
Matt you should add Google BETA tester to your resume.

Anyone who has NOT merged yet and is considering should see this thread.
Google+ Business Update - Pros and Cons of Merging Google Places Now Vs Waiting

Hey Linda,

Thanks for the update. Odd situation, however, I wonder if a duplicate listing was involved in this process prior to merging.

A colleague of mine today saw that he merged a listing where the local listing and the business page were in the same account. However, there was a duplicate unclaimed listing showing in the SERPS. After merging the business page and local listing the verified checkmark appeared on the duplicate listing.

I would be curious if this person knew of a duplicate listing existing prior to merging?

Also, I tend to agree with you: "This could just be an issue in moderation and delay". If these listings aren't reverted correctly within a week I think this will be a much larger issue. May be best to sit back for a couple days and see how these listings react. I will keep you updated with our instances.

Thanks,
Matt

Thanks Matt, yes please do keep us in the loop on what happens on both.

As I said over at the G forum, this is uncharted waters for us all (even Google) so we just need to figure it out as we go along.

The attny (bailbondsmen) in San Anontio in that thread merged his duplicate, and it looks like it went just fine.

Poor guy.