Two Google profiles for the same business: why it happens and how to merge them

How the duplicate is born

The case we see most often: the business starts on social media. It opens Instagram or Facebook, realises social media is how you grow, and to be found it quickly creates a Google profile too, with a personal account or the one used for social media. A few years later it has its website built by a professional, who cannot find the old profile, or has no access to it, and creates a new one linked to the site. The site ranks on Google far better than a social profile, so the new profile shows up next to the old one. And there are two profiles.

Other common cases:

• a customer added the business on Maps before you did;
• after a move a new profile was created instead of changing the address;
• an agency or a former collaborator had opened the profile with their own account.

Note: in a practice with several professionals, the practice's profile and an individual professional's profile can coexist. That is not a duplicate.

Why it is a problem

Customers do not know which profile is the right one: they call the old number, find the wrong hours, leave their review on the profile nobody looks at. Reviews are split in two, and Google does not know which of the two to show, so sometimes it shows the wrong one.

Step one: get access to both

Find out which Google account the old profile was created with: the old Gmail, the social media account, the account of whoever was helping you back then. If you cannot find it, you can request access from the profile: Google writes to whoever manages it today, and if they do not answer within a few days it lets you verify it yourself.

Then: merge, do not delete

Deleting the old profile looks like the simplest way, but the reviews go with it. Better to merge: ask Google to treat one profile as a duplicate of the other. If you manage both, ask Business Profile support. Otherwise, on Maps, on the profile to remove: “Suggest an edit”, then “Close or remove” and “Duplicate”. Reviews usually move to the profile that stays, but Google does not guarantee it: that is why it pays to keep the profile with more history and correct its details, if you can.

Afterwards: fix everything else

Check that the website, Instagram, Facebook and your emails lead to the remaining profile. Update the link you use to ask for reviews and the QR code, if you printed any. In the following weeks, searching for yourself on Google should show only one.

If you would rather not deal with it

Getting lost access back and having two profiles merged takes patience and a few messages to Google support. We do it for our clients, and in the end the profile stays in your name. How to keep it in order afterwards is in The Google profile of a business with premises. If instead nobody opened the second profile and Google created it, read The duplicate profile Google created.