Link to a competitor to our Business Page

[lina]

I have a local tour business with 65 reviews on our Google Business Page. There's a section on our Business Page that says "Reviews from the web" and has a link to the homepage of a competitor who uses product schema markup on their tour page.

I have contacted Google multiple times about this but every time they tell me I need to contact the third-party provider. They don't seem to understand that:

a) Google added this link to my Business Page and that neither I nor my competitor can remove it
b) the page they link to is not a review service but the actual homepage of my competitor
c) that the reviews are not about my business

I've posted on the Google community forums and a product expert made an appeal for me and it was rejected. Is there anything I can do? I've just added product review schema to my page in the hopes it might somehow replace the link to the competing business.

I'm not sure if I should post a link to my page, but happy to share if anyone wants to message me.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Lina, can you share the business details here so I can take a look? Historically GBP support could help with this so I would like to look into it for you.

When you contact support, make sure you send them the keyword you searched to trigger the Knowledge Panel along with the link to the 3rd-Party profile that you want removed. Make sure you explain clearly that the businesses are not affiliated.

You should probably also take a few additional steps to make sure the profile doesn’t have any information on it connecting it to you. If Google wrongly put it in your Knowledge Panel there must be a reason why they think it’s connected.

 

[lina]

This is a link to my Drive file with a screenshot of the GBP with incorrect link, and my correspondence with Google that I put together for the Google Product Expert who tried to help. I hope that's okay. I'd prefer not to post the name of my business on the forum as I don't want this to come up with people search for us.

I understand where the mistake originated, in that our business name is generic sounding and our competitor uses variations of our business name and other competitors on their page, I assume for SEO purposes. But when actually examining the page, it's very clear they aren't the same business, as the price points are wildly different, the guides are different, etc. I don't know how I can stop this competitor from using our generic name in their web content.

You'll see from the correspondence that GBP support has missed the point.

 

[lina]

Hi Lina, can you share the business details here so I can take a look? Historically GBP support could help with this so I would like to look into it for you.

When you contact support, make sure you send them the keyword you searched to trigger the Knowledge Panel along with the link to the 3rd-Party profile that you want removed. Make sure you explain clearly that the businesses are not affiliated.

You should probably also take a few additional steps to make sure the profile doesn’t have any information on it connecting it to you. If Google wrongly put it in your Knowledge Panel there must be a reason why they think it’s connected.

Hi Colan, I was wondering if you had the chance to take a look? If I am missing or misunderstanding something, I'd appreciate any feedback.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

I did take a look and it seems like something Google should be able to address. We don't do cross-posting here from the Google business profile forum but if you want to DM me a link to the post you did over there I can take a quick look.