Fixing Google Business Profiles for Multi-Location Businesses
Once a business has more than a handful of branches, its Google Business Profiles stop being a marketing task and become a data management job. Profiles get created by branch managers, verified with personal accounts, named inconsistently and left pointing at the home page, and nobody is sure who owns which one.
This guide covers the management side for chains and franchises: organising profiles into business groups, controlling access, bulk verification, keeping a master spreadsheet with store codes, setting per-branch details correctly, and handling openings, moves and closures without losing reviews.
How multi-location profiles get into a mess
Few chains design their profiles from scratch. They accumulate them. A typical estate of twenty branches, checked for the first time, shows some of these:
- Unknown owners. Profiles claimed years ago by a former manager's personal Google account, or by an agency that no longer works for the business.
- Duplicates. Two profiles for one branch, one created by staff and one generated by Google from other sources, splitting reviews between them.
- Inconsistent names. "Greenleaf Opticians", "Greenleaf Opticians Ltd" and "Greenleaf Opticians Harbury" across branches of the same company.
- Shared details that should not be shared. Every profile listing the head office phone number and the home page as the website.
- Stale branches. A branch that closed two years ago still shown as open, or a relocated branch appearing at both addresses.
- Uneven upkeep. One enthusiastic manager keeps a profile beautifully, while others have no photos and years of unanswered reviews.
The GBP Audit checks one profile at a time against your website and major citation sources. For a chain, running it on a few representative branches, including the best and worst kept, shows which problems are systemic and which are local.
Accounts, business groups and roles
Google's tools for managing many profiles have changed names over the years, but the building blocks are stable:
| Building block | What it is | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Business Profile Manager | The web dashboard for managing several profiles in one place | Where bulk edits, groups and bulk verification are handled. |
| Business group | A folder that holds profiles and has its own list of users (formerly called a location group) | One group for the brand, or one per region or franchisee. |
| Primary owner | The single account with ultimate control of a profile or group | A company-controlled account, not a person's private one. |
| Owner | Full control, including adding and removing users | A small number of senior staff. |
| Manager | Can edit the profile and reply to reviews, but not manage users | Branch managers and agencies. |
| Organisation account | An account structure for large brands and agencies managing many groups | Worth considering for large estates or agencies. |
A sound pattern is to make a shared company account, such as a Google account on a listings@
address controlled by the business, the primary owner of every group. Add named staff as owners or managers
with their own accounts. When someone leaves, remove their access; the profiles stay with the company.
Bulk verification
Verifying profiles one at a time by video or post does not scale. Businesses with ten or more locations of the same brand can usually request bulk verification from the Business Profile Manager. Google reviews the request, which asks for details about the business and a contact at the company, and may take some time and ask follow-up questions.
What to know before you apply:
- It is for one brand's own locations. Agencies and listing services managing many different businesses are not eligible for bulk verification for those clients.
- The data must be clean first. Consistent names, real addresses and working local phone numbers make approval more likely. Fix the spreadsheet before you apply.
- Use a company email domain. Requests from an address on the business's own domain are easier for Google to connect to the brand than a free webmail address.
- New locations afterwards. Once a group has been bulk verified, new locations added to it have often been verified with less friction, but Google can still ask for individual verification.
The exact eligibility rules and form change from time to time, so read Google's current help page on bulk verification before applying.
The master spreadsheet and store codes
Every well-run multi-location estate has one master list that is the source of truth. The Business Profile Manager supports bulk upload from a spreadsheet, and even if you never use that feature, keeping your list in the same shape makes edits and checks much easier.
The key column is the store code: a unique identifier you choose for each location,
such as GL-014. It lets Google match each row to the right profile when you upload changes,
and it lets your own systems refer to a branch without relying on its name or address, both of which
can change.
Store code,Business name,Address line 1,Locality,Postcode,Country,Primary phone,Website,Primary category,Labels
GL-001,Greenleaf Opticians,12 Market Place,Harbury,HB1 1AA,GB,01632 960101,https://example.co.uk/branches/harbury,Optician,North;Flagship
GL-002,Greenleaf Opticians,3 Station Road,Ashcombe,AC4 2BB,GB,01632 960102,https://example.co.uk/branches/ashcombe,Optician,North
GL-014,Greenleaf Opticians,Unit 7 Riverside Retail Park,Eastbridge,EB9 3CC,GB,01632 960114,https://example.co.uk/branches/eastbridge,Optician,South;Retail parkThis is an illustration only. Download the current template from the Business Profile Manager before a real upload, because Google sets the exact column names and adds columns for hours, special hours, additional categories and other fields.
- Labels are your own tags for filtering, such as region, format or area manager. They are not shown to the public.
- Never reuse a store code. When a branch closes, retire its code rather than giving it to the next new branch.
- Keep a change log. A column or separate tab recording what changed and when saves arguments later about who edited what.
What should be shared and what must differ
Consistency matters for the brand, but many fields have to be local to be useful. The split is usually:
| Field | Same everywhere | Per location |
|---|---|---|
| Business name | Yes: the real brand name as on signage | No town or branch word unless it is on the sign |
| Logo | Yes | |
| Primary category | Usually | Differs where a branch is a different format |
| Phone number | Yes: a number that reaches that branch | |
| Website link | Yes: the branch's own page, not the home page | |
| Hours and special hours | Yes, including branch-only closures | |
| Attributes | Only company-wide ones, such as payment methods | Accessibility, parking and amenities |
| Photos | A few brand images | Mostly: exterior, interior and team of that branch |
| Review replies | Tone and escalation rules | Replies written with knowledge of that branch |
Names
Google's guidelines expect the business name to match the real-world name and to be consistent across locations. Adding the town to every branch name, such as "Greenleaf Opticians Harbury", is not allowed unless the town is part of the name customers see on the shopfront. Google already shows the address, so customers can tell branches apart.
Departments and practitioners
Some organisations can have more than one profile at one address. A car dealership's sales and service departments, or a hospital's departments with their own entrances and hours, may qualify for separate department profiles. Individual professionals such as solicitors or doctors can sometimes have practitioner profiles. Check Google's guidelines carefully, because creating extra profiles that do not qualify leads to duplicates being removed.
The fix, step by step
Step 1
Build a master list of every location
Start a spreadsheet with one row per branch, open or recently closed, including a store code, trading name, address, branch phone, branch web page, hours and manager. Then search Google Maps for the brand in each town to find every profile that exists, including duplicates and ones you did not create. Record the owner of each profile where you can see it, and run the GBP Audit on a sample of branches.
Step 2
Take back ownership and tidy access
Create a company-controlled Google account to act as primary owner and request ownership of any profile held by a former employee or agency, using the request access process where the current owner does not respond. Then review every user on every profile, remove people who have left, and give branch staff and agencies manager rather than owner access. Record who has what in the spreadsheet.
Step 3
Organise profiles into business groups
In the Business Profile Manager, move profiles into business groups that match how the business is run, for example one group for company-owned branches and one per franchisee, or one per region. Make the company account primary owner of each group and add users at group level where they need several branches. Add labels such as region or format to every location so you can filter and bulk edit.
Step 4
Apply for bulk verification
Once the spreadsheet is clean and every branch has a consistent name, real address and working local number, request bulk verification from the Business Profile Manager if you have ten or more locations of the same brand. Use a contact email on the company domain and answer follow-up questions quickly. Read Google's current help page first, since eligibility rules and the request form change from time to time.
Step 5
Standardise names and shared details
Set the business name on every profile to exactly the brand name on the signage, removing town names, service words and legal suffixes that customers never see. Apply the same logo and set company-wide attributes, such as accepted payment methods, in bulk. Check each branch's primary category, keeping it the same across the estate unless a branch is genuinely a different kind of business, such as an outlet or a service centre.
Step 6
Set per-location details branch by branch
For each branch, set a phone number that reaches that branch, a website link to its
own branch page with campaign parameters such as utm_content set to the store code, its
real hours and special hours, and its own accessibility and parking attributes. Ask each branch for current
photos of its exterior, interior and team. Upload the changes in bulk using store codes, then spot-check
several profiles in Maps.
Step 7
Set rules for openings, moves and closures
Write down the process for each event. A new branch gets a new store code, a profile added to the right group and a branch page on the website. A move is an address change on the existing profile, never a new profile. A closure is marked as permanently closed, not deleted. Duplicate profiles are reported for removal. Give one person responsibility for applying and logging each change.
Openings, relocations, closures and duplicates
Opening a new branch
Create the profile inside the right business group, with the next store code, before the opening date. You can set an opening date so customers can see the branch is coming, and publish the profile fully once you open. Launch the branch web page at the same time, so the website link works from day one.
Relocating a branch
Edit the address of the existing profile rather than creating a new one. That keeps reviews, photos and history with the branch. Google may ask for verification again, and the old address may appear briefly in some places while the change settles. Update the website, the master spreadsheet and major directories on the same day.
Closing a branch
Mark the profile as permanently closed. Deleting it removes your control but does not necessarily remove the place from Maps, which can then linger with details you can no longer change. Point the closed branch's web page to the nearest open branch or to the branch finder, and say on the page that it has closed.
Duplicates
Where two profiles exist for one branch, keep the one with the better history and ask Google to remove or merge the other through Business Profile support. Do not simply rename a duplicate into a different branch, which confuses reviews and history.
Franchises
Decide at contract level who owns each franchise profile. A common setup is for the brand to be primary owner with the franchisee as manager, so the profile stays with the brand if the franchise changes hands. Whatever you choose, write it into the franchise agreement.
Tools for larger estates
The Business Profile Manager and spreadsheet uploads work for tens of locations. For hundreds, many businesses use the Business Profile APIs, which require an application to Google for access, or a third-party listings platform that uses them. These let you sync hours, attributes and special hours from your own systems, publish posts to many branches and pull reviews into one inbox.
Two cautions apply. First, a sync tool becomes the source of truth: edits made by hand in the profile can be overwritten at the next sync, so make changes in the tool. Second, when you stop using a platform, check that your profiles are left in a good state and that access for the platform is removed.
For the website side of a multi-location business, such as branch pages, store locators and per-branch structured data, see the multi-location SEO guide on the local SEO hub. For how the branches appear against each other in Maps, see Maps for multi-location businesses.
1. How do I manage lots of Google Business Profiles in one place?
Use the Business Profile Manager, which lets you see and edit many profiles together, organise them into business groups, add users at group level and upload changes from a spreadsheet using store codes. Make a company-controlled account the primary owner of every group, and give branch staff or agencies manager access. For very large estates, the Business Profile APIs or a listings platform can sync details from your own systems instead of editing by hand.
2. What is bulk verification and who can use it?
Bulk verification lets a business with ten or more locations of the same brand verify them together through the Business Profile Manager rather than one by one. Google reviews a request containing details about the business and a company contact. It is intended for a brand's own locations, not for agencies managing many different clients. Clean your location data before applying, and check Google's current help page, as the eligibility rules and form change over time.
3. Should I add the town name to each branch's business name?
No, unless the town is part of the name customers see on the shopfront. Google's guidelines expect the business name to match the real-world name and to be consistent across locations. Adding a town or branch descriptor to every profile breaks those guidelines and can be reported. Google already shows each branch's address, so customers can tell them apart. Use the branch web page and profile description to add local detail instead.
4. What are store codes in Google Business Profile?
A store code is a unique identifier you assign to each location, such as GL-014. It lets Google match spreadsheet rows to the correct profile when you upload bulk changes, and lets your own systems refer to a branch without relying on its name or address. Choose a simple, permanent scheme, keep the codes in your master spreadsheet, never reuse a code when a branch closes, and use the code in tracking parameters on each branch's website link.
5. How do I get back a branch profile a former employee owns?
First ask the former employee to transfer primary ownership to your company account. If they cannot be reached, use the request access process in Google Business Profile for that listing, which contacts the current owner and may let you claim it if they do not respond within the time Google allows. Once you have it, remove their access and add the profile to the right business group so it cannot be lost the same way again.
6. Should I delete the profile when a branch closes?
No. Mark it as permanently closed. A closed profile tells customers the branch has shut and stops them travelling there, while keeping the listing under your control. Deleting the profile removes your ability to manage it but does not guarantee the place disappears from Maps, so it can linger with details you can no longer correct. Also update the branch web page to say it has closed and point to the nearest open branch.
7. Who should own a franchise location's Google Business Profile?
That is a business decision to settle in the franchise agreement. A common arrangement is for the brand to be the primary owner and the franchisee a manager, so the profile, its reviews and its history stay with the brand if the franchise changes hands. Some brands prefer franchisees to own their profiles outright. Whatever you choose, write it down, put each franchisee's branches in their own business group, and review access whenever a franchise changes.
The GBP Audit reads a live Business Profile, compares its details with your website and major citation sources, and checks categories, photo count and recency, post cadence, review replies, services, attributes and Q&A activity. Run it on a sample of branches to spot patterns.
Open GBP Fixes →