New building ownership and NAP - strategies for removing old listings with bad reviews

[DragonSearch]

I have a question based on this scenario: An apartment building changes ownership. Previous owners were terrible and online listings have had terrible reviews. Since the apartment building now has a new brand name, new office address and phone number, the new owners want to create new online listings instead of claiming the old listings with the bad reviews. Also they want to report the old listings as "closed". They would like to remove the old listings with bad reviews from the old management and old brand name and start fresh, since they plan many improvements. Has anyone tried this strategy? How much luck has anyone had rebranding an apartment building and reporting old business listings as closed?

[RobertFisher]

I think you will run into some problems with this:

** Since the apartment building now has a new brand name, new office address and phone number, the new owners want to create new online listings instead of claiming the old listings with the bad reviews. Also they want to report the old listings as "closed". **

Let's say I own an Apt complex or other business and I suck at it. I realize that all the bad reviews are killing me so I go out and change my business name and office address and then try to report all as new... This is the same thing even though your intent is different. This is one of the tactics used by "reputation management" firms of the less than notable variety. So, I do think you will run into issues and you need to tread quite softly.

Can it be done... maybe; but be prepared for issues with trying this approach. I think a danger you could face is that Google can look at it as simple reputation management play and you can then have trouble ever getting it to list. While we do not do reputation management, we do get clients who come to us due to Local problems who are now not showing up in Local from doing things that are outside terms of service. It is really hard to fix these.

Remember that in Local, the key is NAP. Name, Address, Phone. You are changing two of the three ( I realize you say there is a new office address but people will not search for the new office address and you are going to run into issues with the actual address of the apartments.) What are you going to do when someone searching for the apartment address gets the old listing. Remember there will be a ton of citation sources with old info.

With apartments, your other issue will be citation sources like Yelp or the BBB. Are they going to buy what you have to say about the management change, etc.? My guess is that is also going to be a bit tough to sell. With the new name, are you using a new URL and redirecting any value from the old? If so, you are trying to use what is helpful and jettison what is not, which again makes people question.

So, you might be better with getting new reviews showing the behaviors have changed and using a lot of under new management content, etc. Saying you are going to change is not inspiring at all. Even in your question you say the new management "...plan many improvements." That is not change, that is planned change. Show people the improvements in everything you do and make it clear it is not the same. Then even with the bad original reviews, when you start getting good reviews you will have much higher legitimacy.

Hope that helps even though there is no clear yes or no,

Robert

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Dragon!

Robert is offering good advice. I'll just add a few things here.

Different platforms have different policies on this. For example, look at this conversation on TripAdvisor about ownership changes and old reviews: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g1-i12105-k7183031-Removing_bad_reviews_with_new_ownership-TripAdvisor_Support.html

And here's a good discussion of the details of Google's policy: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/business/Vz8WIPI95M4;context-place=topicsearchin/business/new$20ownership$20reviews

And here's Yelp's section on what to do in a variety of scenarios surrounding a change of ownership/management:

http://www.yelp-support.com/Reporting_Business_Changes?l=en_US

So, I'm mentioning the above because it will likely be worth it to handle this on a platform-by-platform basis, researching general best practices and deciding how to proceed.

Hope this helps!

[RobertFisher]

Miriam,

Thanks for these links; they are quite helpful!

[MiriamEllis]

My pleasure, Robert! I liked your answer, too