New Business vs Takeover vs Rebranding - How to handle the Google entry?

[turbotapeworm]

I've searched for the Google stance on this and found very little guidance so wondered what follow LGs thoughts were on this...

An established independent local business, a bar / restaurant, that was a bit of an institution was recently taken over by a businessman with other bar / restaurant businesses. The name of the business has changed, the colour of the outside of the business has changed, the interior has been redone and the menu is all-new. Some of the old staff were retained.

They have simply renamed the old Google Maps entry for the old business and instantly have a 4.6 rating and ~950 reviews, only 10 of these are actually for the new incarnation of the business and they're a mix of good and bad that would probably average a 3.

In my view it's a new business and the old entry should have been archived and a new one created to grow its own story, others seem to disagree with me as it's serving similar food from the same place with some of the same staff (but new owners).

1. How do my fellow LGs think this one should have been handled?

2. What's the official Google stance on this? Is there a document that outlines it other than the ones that simply tell us how to handle a rebranding exercise?

It's too late now as it's happened and there isn't a chance it will be handled differently but my inquisitive nature would like to know how it should have been done, maybe this approach is fine... it just feels a little bit fake to me.

Could Google do more to add a section on listings to show when a name has changed, when it happened and what the old name was? Maybe mark the reviews with the specific business name at the time it was posted?

(there's at least 5 instances of similar happening around here and it intrigues me as to how it should be handled and how Google could deal with this kind of thing better going forward, if necessary).

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi @turbotapeworm 

I agree with you. This case should be handled as a new business and started over with zero reviews since all those reviews are not related to the new owner and the new business.

This issue is probably not something we Local Guides should try to mess with. Some sales of businesses may include a paragraph in the contract that the new owner will take over the existing Google Maps listing. And this may even affect the price of the transaction. 

This matter is better addressed in the help forum for Business owners. They have their own help pages and forum. Here is the GBP help center and you find the GBP forum here.

I'm sure you can find relevant guidance there. I do remember being told that Google Staff has access to remove all reviews before or after a specific date. But this is rarely used. So you can try motivating one of the volunteer product experts there to escalate this particular case to staff. You need to provide clear documentation (basically make it simple for the volunteers to escalate the case successfully).

Best of luck
Morten

[turbotapeworm]

Thanks @MortenCopenhagen - I'm staying well out of it and not wasting any time making reports or getting involved in any way but what's interesting is that other LGs now seem to be editing their old reviews to note that they were made against the old business and not the new one - that's what made me wonder if this is something Google should do when a business name change happens. Archive the old stuff against the old name and clearly show that the name of the entry was changed on a particular date - a bit like Facebook do when a page / group name change occurs I guess.

I hunted around for an official line on this kind of thing and struggled to get any real clarity - there's plenty of guidance on changing details, transferring ownership of a business listing, adding managers for it and so on but very little I can see about what would constitute a new entry being created rather than an old one being edited so much that it has no resemblance to any of the content previous shared on it.

This leads me to another point on this I guess, the report feature says we can report content that is "inappropriate or inaccurate" - in this situation every photo of the inside, outside, menu images, food photos etc are now "inaccurate" due to the changes, they don't represent the current incarnation of this business accurately. You'd get nowhere on a mission to try and action this obviously but I find it an interesting thought, I did try and report a photo of an old shop front that wasn't anything like the current one years ago, it's still there so I know Google don't really worry about this as much as I do 🙂

[MortenCopenhagen]

@turbotapeworm 

Trying to fix such issues by flagging individual photos and reviews is not a feasible strategy. ALso because the flagging seems not to lead anywhere...

You mentioned that some users started updating their reviews because of this. And I guess you can point out sets of photos illustrating the new design, and menu. And maybe a link to a local newspaper mentioning the new ownership.  With this at hand, you could easily create a post in the GMB forum and ask/suggest this getting fixed (mention the date of takeover).  It is not a lot of work to write this. 

If they react positively and fix the issue, then we will have learned more about what is possible on Google Maps.

So as a concerned consumer, I believe you are welcome to report this and ask if this should be fixed. And you could as for links to relevant documentation on this. 

All the best

Morten

[gmapas]

Olá, @turbotapeworm 

Isso acontece com muita frequência. Certo dia recebi um e-mail dizendo que o proprietário respondeu a uma avaliação que eu havia feito. Pensei comigo que isso era pelo fato de minhas avaliações ocultas terem ficados públicas em um local que eu havia avaliado há muito tempo.

Ao ir ver a resposta me surpreendi que a empresa que eu avaliei não era a que estava me respondendo. Tudo, com exceção do endereço era outro local, um novo restaurante. Por não concordar com a "prática" eu deletei meu comentário naquele lugar.  Pois não foi para ele que fiz minha avaliação. E o mais interessante foi a resposta agradecendo minha avaliação, que era para empresa que existia antes, não era para empresa que estava me respondendo.

Sucesso

Gil 😊