Changing location vs. Taking over another location

[Tony Wang]

Client has a franchise at location A, recently closed but GBP is still active. He is buying a store at location B, same city. Can we close the GBP at location B and just change the address of his old GBP? Anything special we need to do or look out for?

The franchises all have location modifiers in their name and on their GBP. So, for example, this change would be: Store Brand - Seattle West to Store Brand - Seattle Central. In this case the location modifiers are close enough that it would not be too confusing.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Tony,

It depends on how location B currently performs. I would probably tell Google to mark location A as moved to location B and keep location B active. That would move reviews over from A to B.

 

[kathleen.rhodes]

@Colan Nielsen I'm not sure how to "tell Google" that a location has moved.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

I normally do it via GBP support. Fill out the contact form and tell them they moved and give them the new location.

 

[Tony Wang]

@Colan Nielsen we decided we should stick with the original profile at Location A since that was pretty prominent compared to the Location B store that we're taking over.

But I contacted GBP support to explain I wanted to close Location B profile and change the address of Location A to that of Location B. They said I should mark Location A permanently closed and then they could move it over to Location B along with all the reviews.

Not sure, but that doesn't sound quite right to me as we want to keep the strength and age of the original Location A profile. What support explained sounds to me like they're going to do some kind of merge of reviews.

I've changed the address on a profile before when the business moved, without marking it closed. Did something change? Or is support just confused? I know this is not a typical situation.