A new business opens in a building where another one used to be. New sign, new phone number, new everything. But online, the old business can still be sitting at that address.
We ran into this recently. A shop had moved into a building where a chain oil-change place used to be. On Yelp, Yellow Pages and Waze, the old business was still listed at that address, with its old phone number. So a customer who looks up the address sees the wrong name, and either calls a number that doesn't reach the new owner or figures the place closed.
Why it sticks around
Nobody tells these sites when a business closes or moves out. Google, Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing, Waze and the directory sites each keep their own listings, and some copy from each other, so an old listing can keep popping back up. The old owner has no reason to clean it up, so usually nobody does.
It's not just Google
Old listings hang around on maps, review sites and directories, a lot more of them than most owners realize. If the old business still shows up at your address, or you don't show up at all, customers are going somewhere else.
Getting it fixed
Each site has its own way to report a business as closed or moved, and its own way to add yours. Some ask you to prove you're at that address first, by phone, postcard or a short video. It's not hard, just tedious, and it's easy to fix five and miss the sixth.
That's exactly the kind of job we take off people's hands. We'll check every site, report the old business, and make sure your name, number and hours are right everywhere.