When businesses disappear, either by just stopping or by bankruptcy, often another new business will sooner or later show up at the same location. If this is an ‘individual’ store (as in: not belonging to a chain) the adding of the new POI on Google Maps will typically be done as a one-off: the business owner, an agency (s)he hires or a local guide will create the single entry, and will then hopefully see that the old POI is also still on the map and then marked it as permanently closed - if not there’s still the #LGCTM-focused local guides to take care of this.
With chains, however, the process is often different: the creation of the POIs can be done as a bulk process (a list with all the details is used as an upload to Google Maps), so there is nobody specifically looking into each single entry - and consequently nobody to immediately notice that there is still an old POI listed on the location of the new POI. The result: in cases where a chain disappears from the market because it went bankrupt and another company took over (some of) the store locations or in cases where one company was acquired by another company (as the example from the banking industry in the image on top of this post) a number of obsolete POIs remain on the map.
These chain leftovers are of course an excellent #LGCTM opportunity, as you simply need to search for the old chain names. You might know some of the names from your personal memory, but you can of course also Google phrases such as “apparel chain bankrupt” to find those that might not come to mind immediately. (As always: be careful though… do not simply rely on a single press clipping you might find, as another search result might learn you that the chain made a restart a couple of months later.)
This post is part of a series of tips in the Local Guides Clean The Map project.
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@JanVanHaver Thanks for the clarification
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Another great #LGCTM post @JanVanHaver . This topic is of course very closely related to this post by @Annie4real about bankrupted companies.
I just like to add that we should be aware that there appears to be a difference between the rebranding of a whole chain and when a company takes over another business (location) and this results in a name change. With the rebranding, the name should be changed, with the change of a business with a new name, the old company listing should be permanently closed and a new place added to maps.
Unfortunately, the guidelines are hard to find and somewhat ambiguous. Here is a recent post on the Google Maps Community Forum by a person that got himself in deeper waters when trying to clean the map.
Fortunately, Google’s recent more interactive work-flow when editing does help us. I myself changed a bakery that had different branding and was asked, are you correcting the name or is this a change to the business? When I said it was a change to the business, Google automatically closed the old business and created a new place based on my edit.
If you find any clear rules, please share them in the comments.
I am currently working on a post related to temporary closed places and found the following statement that seems relevant to this debate in this thread:
Tip: If your business was marked permanently closed as part of a location or name change, don’t reopen the Business Profile. Instead, create a new profile.
source here
#LetsCleanTheMap!
JeroenM
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It’s extremely complex to come up with an exact ruleset that covers all scenarios @JeroenM , that’s my experience so far, also when it comes to rebranding or removing. I just go case by case.
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Fun fact - actually about the bank mentioned in the post image: I just came across a branch where a new POI was already created for ING, and the old one (Record Bank) still there. And to my surprise… another POI was still there called ‘Mercator’, which is the bank taken over by Record Bank in 2004!
Both old ones I obviously marked as permanently closed, and both edits were instantly approved.
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Hi @JanVanHaver thanks for clarify But I think it’s so simple add new business and Mark old one at same location as permanently closed few months back my edits and add place suggestions take a lot of time now approved instantly so for me it’s so simpl
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That’s definitely a positive experience hat your edits are getting approved sooner noz @Muhammad_Usman . And do you mean ‘approved already after a few seconds’ or ‘on less days/weeks waiting time than before’?
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Hi @JanVanHaver
Now my added more than 90% Places approved in seconds but edits takes few day to few weeks depends upon how important this place is but some time I disappointed when received Not applicable message because I never never Suggest any fake edit
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