How to Manage Google Business Profiles for Multiple Locations

To manage Google Business Profiles for multiple locations, put every location into a business group owned by the brand, give each real location exactly one profile, keep the business name and primary category the same across the chain, and give every profile its own address, local phone number, hours and location page. If you have 10 or more storefronts of the same business, Google lets you upload them in one spreadsheet and verify the profiles in bulk. Below that, or for service-area businesses without customer-facing sites, you verify each profile on its own.

This guide is for franchise groups, multi-site clinics, retailers and the agencies that look after them. It builds on our guides to how Google ranks local results and location pages for local SEO.

How many Business Profiles can a business have?

One per real location. Google's guidelines for representing your business say there should be only one profile per business location, and that you shouldn't create more than one page for a location, whether in one account or several. A location qualifies when customers can visit it during stated hours, or when staff travel out from it to serve customers. A rented mailbox or virtual office doesn't qualify, and a co-working desk only qualifies with permanent signage, staff on site and customers received during business hours.

There are a few cases where one address can carry more than one profile. Publicly facing departments with their own entrance and category, such as a service centre inside a car dealership, can have their own Google Business Profile. So can individual practitioners, like doctors or lawyers, who deal with the public directly. Duplicates are the usual problem in chains: an old profile created by a franchisee, a second one made by a previous agency, or one left behind after a move. Google warns that more than one profile for a business can cause problems with how its information shows on Maps and Search, so merge or remove duplicates before you scale anything else.

Should you use a business group or your own Google Account?

Use a business group. Google's help page on creating and managing business groups describes a group as a shared folder for profiles and recommends that anyone new to Business Profile who manages several businesses create one first, then add and verify the profiles inside it. A profile held in one person's Google Account can only be reached by that person, which is why passwords end up shared and why access disappears when someone leaves.

Groups are a structure decision, not just a filing one. Anyone you add as an owner or manager at group level can reach every current and future profile in that group. One group per brand gives you one dashboard and one spreadsheet. Several groups, for example one per brand or division, keep teams out of locations they shouldn't edit, but each needs its own spreadsheet import. Google also says a business group can't act as a manager of other groups.

How do you verify 10 or more locations at once?

Google's bulk location management overview sets out the sequence for businesses with 10 or more locations:

1. Use an email address on your own domain. Google says an address that isn't on the business's domain will take longer to verify.
2. Create a business group to hold the locations.
3. Build one spreadsheet with every location. Use the template in Business Profile Manager. Google wants all the locations you manage in the file, because it looks for evidence that the account matches the real size of the chain.
4. Upload it and fix every error Google flags before the profiles can be published.
5. Request bulk verification from the Verifications tab. Uploading the spreadsheet alone doesn't send a request.
6. Keep the data current. Google says it may de-verify accounts that don't actively manage their profiles.

Google's page on delays in bulk verification lists what slows approval down: names with store codes or specialities added, call-centre numbers instead of local ones, redirecting URLs, postcodes with dropped leading zeros, and fewer than 10 eligible locations. Service-area businesses can only bulk verify if their locations are also customer-facing during regular hours; the rest verify each location individually. Our guide to service-area businesses on Google covers that setup.

What should stay the same across every location?

Google's chain guidelines ask for two things to match. All locations in the same country should use the same name, unless the real-world signage consistently differs, and all locations that provide the same service should share the one category that best represents the business. The name should be the brand as customers see it: no suburb notes, no store codes, no keywords and no taglines. Google says unnecessary information in a business name can get the profile suspended, and our guide to a suspended Google Business Profile explains how to recover if it happens.

Everything else should belong to the location. Google's guidelines ask for a phone number that connects to the individual location rather than a central helpline where possible, and a website link that represents that location. In practice that means linking each profile to its own location page, not the homepage, so the address, hours and services on Google match what the visitor lands on. That page is where the local SEO work on your website and the profile meet.

The bulk upload spreadsheet gives you the controls to run this at scale. Every row needs a business code, which is a unique ID that customers don't see and that Google uses to match updates to the right profile. Labels let you filter locations by region or format in the dashboard and in Google Ads location assets. One trap: if a spreadsheet includes a column heading with empty cells underneath, Google deletes the existing information in that column for those profiles.

Who should own the profiles: the business or the agency?

The business. Make the primary owner a Google Account on the brand's own domain, add at least one other senior person as an owner, and give your agency manager access. Google's page on Business Profile owners and managers explains the difference: managers have almost the same access as owners, except they can't add or remove users or remove the profile. That is enough for an agency to update hours, publish posts and reply to reviews without holding the keys.

Two details matter when agencies change. New owners and managers wait 7 days before they can remove users, delete a profile or transfer primary ownership. And if a former franchisee or agency still owns a location's profile, you can request ownership; the current owner gets 3 days to respond before you may be offered the option to claim it. Write account ownership into your SEO contract, and check it as part of any plan to switch SEO agencies.

How do you keep dozens of profiles accurate?

Treat the profiles like a product catalogue with an owner and a schedule. Google's tips to improve your local ranking say local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and that businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up. Google adds that prominence draws on how many websites link to a business and how many reviews it has; our free Page Authority Checker gives a quick read on each location page's link strength. At scale, that becomes a routine:

1. Set special hours before every public holiday across the group, not location by location.
2. Audit for duplicates and edits each month. Search each location's name and suburb in Maps, and review any Google-suggested updates waiting in the dashboard.
3. Give each branch a review routine that follows the rules in our guide to getting more Google reviews, with replies handled by named staff.
4. Report by location. Ask for calls, direction requests and website clicks per profile in your monthly SEO report, so weak branches stand out.

How do location pages and schema fit in?

Each location page should carry the same name, address, phone number and hours as its profile. You can describe them for search engines with schema markup: Google's documentation on local business structured data shows how to mark up a business's address, opening hours and departments, and our Academy lesson on structured data basics explains how it works. The free schema generator will draft the JSON-LD for a location page.

Keep the pages genuinely local. Google's spam policies treat sets of city pages built to rank for each place and funnel visitors to one destination as doorway abuse, and a profile pointing at one of those does little for the customer who taps through. If an agency is pitching a large rollout, the SEO ROI calculator helps you test whether the extra enquiries justify the cost.

A multi-location Business Profile checklist

• Every real location has exactly one profile, and duplicates are merged or removed.
• All profiles sit in a business group whose primary owner is an account on the brand's domain.
• At least two people at the business are owners; agencies and local staff are managers.
• Names match real-world signage, with no store codes, suburb notes or keywords.
• Locations offering the same service share the same primary category.
• Each profile has its own address, a local phone number, accurate hours and a link to its own location page.
• Every spreadsheet row has a unique business code, and empty columns are removed before upload.
• Chains with 10 or more storefronts have requested bulk verification.
• Special hours are set for public holidays across the group.
• Location pages carry matching details and local business structured data.

The bottom line

Managing Google Business Profiles across many locations is mostly about structure and ownership. Put every location in a business group the brand owns, give each real site one profile, keep the name and category consistent, and make each profile's phone, hours and link specific to that site. Chains with 10 or more storefronts can verify in bulk; everyone else verifies profile by profile. Then keep the data current, because Google rewards accurate profiles and can de-verify neglected ones. If you want help, browse local SEO agencies, compare enterprise SEO agencies in Australia for large networks, start with SEO agencies in Melbourne, or get matched with a specialist who has run multi-location accounts before.