The Online Marketing Company
Victoria & Vancouver SEO

Need a quick solution to getting rid of that pesky duplicate Google Places listing? Or rather, you can’t remember your logins to your Google Places page and want to transfer ownership of the profile into another email address? This is a very simple job and one that I constantly see mucked up. So, instead of repeating myself a million times I am going to put it on paper so to speak.

If your objective is to kill a duplicate listing (a listing that shares a common address or phone number), you have a few choices. Assuming you have ownership of the listing, you can login to your Google Places Dashboard and click delete seen below:

The crappy thing about this is it will take 2-4 weeks typically to leave the SERPs which is too damn long.

Another option is to do a community edit. I am told this works mainly for those in the US and UK, but I have seen a bit differently. Note, you will probably receive a call from Google, so be sure to pick up your phone over the next couple days. Despite the call, I have still found this to take a couple weeks.

My favorite option is to suspend the listing. Your first step is to clean your computer. Cache, history, temp, cookies etc. Use BetterPrivacy & Ccleaner. Frankly, this is probably just the paranoia in me…Next, open up Firefox and login to an unrelated Gmail account. I typically will use a Gmail account that does not already house a Google Places listing. Next, visit the Google Places page you want to delete. If the place page is claimed/verified, click “Edit this Place” as seen below.

Google will the shoot you a pop up that looks like this.

Click Google Places and select “Suspend this listing” on the next page and continue.

If it is not claimed, click “Business Owner?” and you will be routed to a new page where you will select “Suspend this listing” and continue.

NOTE: If your intention is NOT to delete the listing, but rather transfer ownership because you lost the logins, click “Edit my business information” and continue. Just make sure you fill in the required info on the next page and click submit.

Once you click continue or submit if you are transferring ownership, you will be brought to this page:

Not always will it look like this. Occasionally you will get only one option…the post card option. In that event off the post card goes. If you have the choice however, choose phone and make sure you or your client is ready to receive a 5 digit pin via a phone call to the phone number on the listing. Make sure they pick up on first ring and have a pen and paper ready.

Once the call is sent you will be routed to a new page where you will enter the pin code. Once done, the listing will be almost automatically removed from the SERPs. I suggest you then remove it from your account by clicking delete and removing it from your places account.

If your goal is to just transfer ownership, once you have received the call/postcard and verified the listing the listing will migrate into your account and you can do with it as you please.

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.

Related posts:

1. Google Places Page Optimization: Google Local in Review
2. Google Local in Review: A Series
3. Tips to Rank in Google Places
4. Goodbye, Farewell Google Places Phone Verification…
5. Google Places Bugs & Glitches | All-Time High