Claiming an existing owner-verified listing

I get asked this a lot, is it possible to claim an already owner-verified listings into a new account ? It sure is!

Take for example if you are an attorney in Tampa and your N.A.P. is as follows:

Basically you’ll want to either find a duplicate listing like this, simply use Google to search for the company name. If you find a duplicate listing, determine if you have claimed any of them yet. In many cases, many local companies have hired SEOers in the past who have claimed listing under their own account, which create problems for the company or new SEO team.

You will then reverify the new listing with Google, which tends to take precendence over new claimed listings. You may want to merge listings. Here’s a link to Google Places Best Practices which will give you many choices for help.

In any event, here’s a list of instructions on how to proceed, this is directly from Google.

1. Make sure you’ve claimed one of the listings in Google Places. Verify that there’s only one active listing in your account by logging in to your Google Places account.
   1. If there’s more than one listing in your account for the same business, you’ll first need to fix that problem by following the steps in the section below.
   2. If you don’t have a listing for it at all, you should claim your business.
2. For every extra result for your business, go to its Place Page, click the Report A Problem link, and select “Place has another listing”. If you can, include a link to your claimed Place Page in the comments section.
3. Google will review these reports and fix duplicate business listings.

Remember, change as little as possible initially and be sure to keep name, address and phone number the same.

It is best to claim it with an email from your business domain so if there is a dispute in the future, you will be recognized as the authoritative listing holder.

The optimal tactic would be for the business to get the login from their SEO but sometimes that just isn’t possible