Local SEO in business acquisition context

[alexrbrg]

Hi everyone,

I have a client who just acquired 4 business. Basically, the 4 compagnies will stop existing and my client will integrate the production at his own adress under his compagny name. My issue here is that my client wants to know what is the best solution for his local results.

The 4 compagnies still have a website that present the new business name will a CTA redirecting to the new website. Their GMB account are still active.

I was about to delete the 4 GMB accounts so when a customer do a brand research, the organic result will show the old business website that will present the new business with a CTA on the website. My thinking is that since the old and the new compagny will compete on the same keyword since they are in the same industry, I don't want the old compagny to be in competition with the compagny of my clients.

Is there a better solution that could benefit the local SEO ?

Thanks y'all !

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Alexandre,

When you say that the 4 companies will cease to exist, does this also mean that their physical locations will close, or is your client opening 4 new offices in the former locations of the companies that have been acquired? Is there just 1 physical location post-acquisition, or 5 of them?

[alexrbrg]

1 physical location only

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Alexandre,

Thanks for the reply. Okay, so Google My Business listings are tied solely to physical location. If the main business has just 1 physical location after the acquisition, it should only have 1 GMB listing. At first glance, I do not recommend that you update the other 4 GMB listings to feature the new brand name, because then they might end up being marked as "permanently closed" while associated with the new business name, which could signal to consumers that the main company has gone out of business. This should be avoided at all costs, as "permanently closed" labels on the listings could also harm the ranking chances of the main business.

There are some complicated nuances to this scenario.

1. I wonder who is controlling the 4 other listings. Have you been able to verify them into the main business' GMB dashboard, or are they verified in the GMB dashboards of each of the 4 other companies.

2. I wonder what happens when you do 301 redirects of the 4 old websites to the main one. This may associate the 4 closed companies with the 1 open one in Google's eyes, and I'm curious (because I don't know for sure) as to whether that association could potentially lead to automation of duplicate listings. Hopefully not, but it's something you'll want to rigorously check for - duplicates cropping up as a result of the merge. Pro tip: Moz Check Listing can help you see duplicates for free, but given the size of this acquisition, you are likely to need the full version of a software like Moz Local to be able to add in all of the variant names/addresses/phone numbers to surface the maximum number of duplicates that may potentially exist of exist in the future.

3. I'm mulling over whether the best thing here would be to close the listings or mark them as moved to the new location.

I'm actually going to see if a colleague of mine has a good opinion on this. The situation is complex.

[alexrbrg]

Wow thanks a lot Miriam,

My best solution so far would be to close all four GMB listing in order to have only one listing. With this solution, i make sure that all the listings aren't competing on the same keyword since they are on the same market and that they do not provide any false information on the previous business.

Since the 4 previous websites are still active and only provide the homepage explaining that the compagny was bought by my client with a CTA that redirect to his website, i'm thinking about using these as a landing page that explain acquisition for the user that do a brand research.

I'm really looking forward to hear your thoughts on that.

Thank you so much,

[JoyHawkins]

I agree with Miriam on point #2 because by 301'ing the domains you'll also get the benefit from all their links.

In the past I have asked Google My Business to mark the old listings as "moved" to the new one.  This will cause people searching for the old brand to see the new one.  In order to accomplish this, you'll need to make sure the Google My Business listings are not verified.  If the previous owners have them claimed in their account, you'll first need to get access to the listing so you can unverify them.

For more details, check out the article that just published this morning: https://moz.com/blog/duplicate-gmb-listings

[MiriamEllis]

Joy, thank you so much for your generosity in coming to share your advice on this (Alexandre, it's Joy I reached out to for an expert opinion).

Just to be sure we've covered all bases, Joy, would you leave the details of the "moved" listings as-is, with the old names on them, or would you edit the business titles to reflect the new name of the brand that acquired them, before getting them moved?

[JoyHawkins]

Leave them as-is.

[MiriamEllis]

Thank you, ma'am!