How to resolve duplicate points of sale in Google?

INTRODUCTION:

We are getting more and more questions about the presence of duplicate sales points in Google. The objective of this article is to help you understand this issue better.

In this context, I invite you to also read the following article that explains how to manage the information of your sales points on Google: Implement Google Business Profile for multiple sales points.

First of all, you need to understand the management system:

The presence of your distribution network's points of sale in Google generally comes from multiple sources:

1. Manual encoding. This can be done by your chain's Marketing department or by the store manager/franchisee.
2. Reporting information from Google robots. These robots crawl the web to find information, and when they identify "points of sale" pages on the web, this information is retrieved to create points of sale pages in Google.
3. Google's partner media.

If you have taken the trouble to create your sales point pages, this was done in Google Business Profile, the management interface provided by Google.

How are duplicates created?

Due to the large number of sources that Google uses, it happens that duplicates are created because each source can contain a certain number of inconsistencies. Let's imagine that you represent a chain of restaurants whose name is: "eat and drink" and that you have a point of sale in Brest. Two encodings are carried out:

1. The franchisee encodes their sales point as "eat and drink Brest".
2. The marketing manager encodes the sales point as "eat and drink".

NB: the correct wording is the second.

It often happens that these points of sale are found with different addresses, phone numbers, or opening hours. Google will consider these two points of sale as different. A duplicate has therefore been introduced into the list. The same principle applies to any other data source.

What problems for distribution networks?

The problems are quite simple to imagine:

1. the chain's image is not consistent across the web
2. customers don't know which information is correct
3. Google has difficulty knowing which information to trust and therefore your positioning will be diminished because the quality of the referencing is not good.

How to resolve duplicate issues in Google Business Profile?

1 - Opt for a centralized approach:

Often, the work is to be done upstream, before the problem arises. Indeed, it is important to have a centralized approach to the problem of referencing points of sale in Google. Indeed, for a chain, all points of sale must have the same name, the same data structure and the same dissemination policy. For example, it is not good that the chain is called "eat and drink Brest" in Brest and "eat and drink" in Lille.

2 - Communicate this approach to your managers/franchisees:

Don't forget to inform your franchisees/managers that the issue is managed centrally from headquarters. Why? To prevent them from creating these famous duplicates.Most of the problems we encounter are here!

Attention, they are often contacted by photographers or local agencies offering to create a Google+ page for their point of sale with a virtual tour. This is a good approach. However, it must be aligned with the central office. Indeed, photographers and local agencies can create these virtual tours. This will improve the SEO of your points of sale. On the other hand, it is essential that they link it to the Google Business Profile account managed centrally. Why? Otherwise, a duplicate will be created.

3 - Clean up Google:

To do this, you have to list all the duplicates created in Google and, one by one, ask Google to delete them. This can be tedious, but it's the only thing to do at the moment.

CONCLUSION:

Managing store information on Google is not as easy as it seems. You need to make sure that your stores have the best possible referencing.

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