When a business owner or marketer starts working with geoservices – Google and Yandex Maps, 2GIS and others – he often makes a mistake. Which one? Starts creating company cards from scratch without checking for availability. This can lead to duplicate cards with similar information. “Doubles” can confuse customers and reduce the chances of your cards getting into the TOP local issue.
Share step by step instructionshow to check if company cards have been created before you in Google and Yandex geoservices.
How to check if a business card exists on Google Maps
1. In the Google Maps search, enter the name of the company and carefully review the points that the search engine suggested for identical or similar names:
Google Maps offered us several cards that match the name of the company
2.In each card of the company that you found by your brand, you need to check the information for realism: compare whether the address of the card corresponds to its real address, whether the phone numbers and links to the site are correct.
3. Further, you can face three scenarios for the development of events.
First scenario: there is no dot that matches your company address
You are probably the first person to get started with Google Maps, which means you need to create all your cards from scratch.
Second scenario: you found your company card, but it does not have an owner
If the card has the “I am the owner of the company” icon, then it does not belong to anyone, so you can assign it to yourself and then decide what to do with it.
What can be done with such a card?
Option 1: If the card has a lot of positive reviews and, in general, it looks attractive, then perhaps it is not worth deleting it: it is in good standing with the geoservice. Better to assign it to yourself, that is, to confirm it owner’s rights…
After you click on the button “I am the owner of the company”, you will see the Google My Business window with the button “Manage the company”
Option 2: If the card is filled in with errors or does not belong to any of your addresses at all (that is, it is fake), you should first assign it, and then delete it through your GMB account…
Scenario three: you find a card that matches your company name, but someone already owns it
If you find a card that matches your business name and it has the icon “Company data management” – it means that it already belongs to someone. However, in this case, the owner did not confirm the rights to it, so any user can make changes to this card:
This card is already owned by someone, probably the business owner. However, if someone from the user “proposes a fix” (for example, corrects the correct phone number to a wrong one), the owner will not be able to see the change and reject it. Competitors can use this technique.
If you find a card with your brand name, but on the card no button “Manage company data”, which means it not only belongs to the owner, but is also officially confirmed by him.
You can also check the presence of the owner through your Google My Business account:
1. Go to your company office in GMB, on the left click “Companies”, then – “Add company”:
2. Enter the name and address of the card whose owner you want to find – you will find this card in the drop-down list:
3. Click on it, then the data of the current owner will open:
If the rights to the card have already been claimed, and this address does not belong to your company, then you need to request the rights to the card through Google My Business support.
How to check if a company card exists on Yandex.Maps
1. Go to Yandex.Maps and enter your company name. See if there are any cards that match your name.
2. If you find a card that has a “blue check mark”, it means that the card verified, that is, it has an owner who has confirmed his rights to it and monitors the information.
If the card has a “blue checkmark”, it means that it definitely has an owner who has confirmed his rights to it and monitors the information
3. If you find a card that matches your name, but She does not have a “blue check mark”… This does not mean that the card has not been confirmed by the owner – in most cases, the owner simply did not fulfill Yandex’s requirements in order to receive a checkmark.
What you need to do to get the blue check mark:
- Confirm the rights to the card.
- Fill the card more than 90%.
- Refresh the data in the card once a quarter (or more often if some information has changed).
4. Check if you are the owner of the found card. It can be done:
- in the personal account of Yandex.Business (formerly Yandex.Directory) of the company, if you have access to it.
- directly in Yandex.Maps, you can see who is the owner of the found card. To do this, you need to click here:
Next, you will see the phone number or email to which the card is linked, and you will be able to determine if this contact is an official contact of your company.
The main idea that we want to convey to everyone who starts working with cards: before creating your company cards from scratch, check if someone has created them before you…
Firstly, it will allow you to check the relevance of all cards created before you, thereby avoiding erroneous information about you on the Internet.
Secondly, it will avoid duplicates, which reduce the position of your main cards in the local search results and make you less visible to customers.
We will tell you how to find and delete duplicate company cards in the next article.