Update 12/Oct/2011: If the below steps do not work for you, try the 3 simple steps in this post to remove the duplicate “Suitcase” Community Facebook Page.
Update 15/Aug/2011: Good ol’ Facebook have changed up the rules again! Seems there are additional requirements for users to merge pages, most importantly duplicate Pages must also be under the admin’s control to appear eligible to be merged, but we have heard that even admins of two identical Pages cannot merge them. If you have this problem, check back in a few weeks to see if Facebook has increased the usability of this feature. Meanwhile, those looking to gain control of community Pages or unofficial fan-controlled Pages that represent the same thing as their official Page should use the “Is this your business?” link or “Report: duplicate” link beneath the duplicate Page’s profile picture.
Have you ever wondered about the ugly Community Pages that often show up in search results when you try and find a Facebook Business Page? They often have a grey suitcase image, or a grey Places icon. They are often created by Facebook when a person adds a company as their workplace without correctly linking to the proper business page. This is very common due to mis-spelling or if the business does not yet have a Facebook presence. Community pages are also automatically created when you fill out your profile with your Interests, Activities, Books and Movies for example.
Up until now, it has been very hard to control the presence of these pages, but very recently Facebook has added a new “Merge” option to the Resources tab of the Page editor.
How to Merge a Community Page with an Official Facebook Page
It is very simple to merge your pages, Page admin can apply to have Pages merged through the “Merge duplicate pages” tool in the Page editor’s Resources tab. Instructions for the tool can be found in the Help Center documentation. All Page admins should check to see if there are any community Pages eligible for them to merge. To do this, click on Edit Page, then select Resources and ‘Merge duplicate pages’. You will then be notified if you have any eligible pages to merge.
After the page admin has initiated the merge, Facebook will then take a few days to verify the application and ensure the Pages are in fact duplicates.
If approved, Facebook will take the fans and check-ins from the community pages and add them to the admin’s official Page. No other content from the community Pages is carried over and the official Page’s content will remain unchanged. New fans are not notified of the change. Please be aware that merging is irreversible, so admins should be sure they know what they’re doing.
To be eligible, only community Pages with identical names to the official Page can be merged, so this may not be an easy fix for everyone. At this stage, there is no other way to delete a Community Page. So if the above fix does not work for you, try these options:
- Go to the Community Page and post a status with a link to your “Official Page”.
- Advise employees to go to their profiles – Edit Profile – Education & Work; delete the job which ties to the Community Page. Save changes then recreate the job, when they type in the company name it should come up with the official Page. Select the Page and save changes.
- If everyone deletes any reference to the unwanted Community Pages (including Likes) then when the official Page gets more Likes and attention the community page will eventually get pushed out of search results. Just advise your fans to go to the page and Unlike it.
Are you planning to merge any Pages? Leave a comment below to let us know how it goes!
