How to Remove a Duplicate Google Plus Listing

It’s a good SEO strategy to have a regularly updated Google Plus business page to rank in both local Maps searches as well as organic Google searches. However, you may run into some problems during the creation or maintenance of your Google Plus page. One of the biggest problems is a duplicate listing, which can come in the form of a listing for your business that has already been claimed by another user, a listing that you previously created and claimed but no longer have access to manage, or an unclaimed listing that Google created on its own.

It should be top priority to remove those unwanted duplicate listings, especially when it comes to your Google Plus listing. They could be distracting customers with potentially false information like an old address or bad phone number, harboring negative reviews from previous management, or competing for ranking positions in search results. In this post, we’ll explain our recommended process for removing those duplicates, whether they’re unclaimed or already verified by another user.

How to remove an unverified or unclaimed duplicate Google Plus listing:

1. Sign in to plus.google.com. Navigate to the duplicate listing or search for one by hovering over Home on the left of your screen and selecting Local from the drop down.
2. Once you’ve clicked on a page, scroll down to the Is this your business? section.
3. Click Manage this page and then check the box that confirms you are authorized, and click Continue.
4. Verify your business page. Whether your aim is to claim the page for further use or to claim it and delete it, it needs to be verified, or it won’t actually be deleted. **Some listings only allow a postcard verification. These take about a week to arrive at your business address, but feel free to progress to the optimization stage until you receive the verification postcard.
5. Now that you are at the dashboard for the duplicate listing, you can easily optimize it or delete it.
6. To delete (Must be verified first): Hover over the profile icon in the top right of your screen, and then click Settings under the business name.
7. Scroll to the very bottom of Settings and click Delete page. Follow the instructions, and select all the boxes to remove this business from all possible platforms.

Now you should be good to go! The Google system may take several months to recognize the change, so be sure to check back. Our own efforts to remove duplicate listings have been successful in removing them from Google Search results, but they still show up for a while on the Google Plus platform. Continue to check back, as we’ve found that some of our duplicate listings we’re keeping track of will magically disappear, without any sign as to what caused the change, other than our efforts several months earlier. This method has been verified by several contacts at Google My Business Support and we’re confident that it’s the best way to remove your duplicate Google Plus listing. If you run into any problems, or if the page won’t delete, have Google My Business support contact you using the following form:

https://support.google.com/business/contact/business_c2c_na?rd=1

How to remove a duplicate Google Plus listing that has already been verified/claimed:

Try removal without an ownership transfer –

1. Try all possible login combinations or contacts that may have an idea of the password.
2. Navigate to the duplicate page and then find the Contact Information section. Click Edit Details.
3. You will be taken to a map with the listing pinpointed, with some information on the left side. Click the slider to say Yes next to “Place is permanently closed or doesn’t exist”.
4. Now, with the listed options, you can select Duplicate or whatever descriptor is most appropriate for your issue and then click submit.

If you aren’t able to see any of these options on the Maps page, try clicking to Add a Note or Report Something Else to get a text box to fill out and send your message to Google Support. If you still aren’t getting what you want, try requesting an ownership transfer of the listing so that you can delete it following the method at the beginning of this post.

Requesting an ownership transfer –

1. Go to plus.google.com. Hover over Search in the upper left corner under the Google logo and then click Pages.
2. Click Get Your Page and then choose the appropriate business type.
3. Search for your business by name and address and then click on the listing you want to remove (or request access to). A window should pop up telling you that someone else owns the listing. Click Request Admin Rights.
4. Fill out the form for Google Support and click Submit. They should contact you via email within the hour and give you further instructions for the ownership transfer process.

We hope this process helps you solve your duplicate Google+ local listing problems.

Check back later for more tutorials and digital marketing insights!

By Rachel Cottrell

Updated May 27, 2015