Claiming a Business Profile that already exists

If a profile for your business is already on Google, what you do next turns on one fact: whether anybody has verified it. Google documents three different procedures for this, and they are not interchangeable. The reader typing “how to claim google business profile” is at risk of adding a second profile instead of claiming the existing one, which is how one business ends up with two.

The three routes and the condition on each

Google’s add-or-claim page opens on the outcome: “When you add and verify your Business Profile, customers can find your business on Search and Maps.” Under that sit the procedures, each with its circumstance in Google’s own words.

Route	The condition Google attaches to it
Add your business	“If a Business Profile for your business doesn’t exist on Search or Maps, you can create one”
Claim an unverified business	“If an unverified Business Profile for your business already exists, you can claim the Business Profile”
Request ownership	“If a Business Profile on Google has been verified and you’re authorized to manage the business, you can request ownership from the current profile owner.”

Three routes by our count, and Google gives no total. The third is printed as an Important callout at the top of the claiming instructions, which puts the fork in the road before the steps rather than after them. So the two questions, in order, are: does a profile exist, and is it verified.

The page states the precondition and the price once each: “Only businesses eligible for a Business Profile can add or claim their location on Google.” and “You can add or claim your business at no charge.”

Why a profile exists when nobody at your business made one

We call these profiles “auto-generated”. Google does not use that word on the page that explains where profile information comes from. What it says is that “Information in profiles is compiled from a variety of sources”, and it lists them:

Google’s stated source of profile information
“Publicly-available information, such as crawled web content (e.g., information from a business’ official website)”
“Licensed data from third parties”
“Users who contribute factual information (such as addresses and phone numbers), and content (such as photos and reviews), including business owners who claim profiles through Google Business Profile”
“Information based on Google’s interactions with a local place or business”

Only the third of those involves anyone claiming anything. A listing assembled from the others can carry your name, address, hours and a pile of reviews while no Google Account holds it, and that is the state claiming exists for.

Working out which situation you are in

Start signed in, because the answer changes with the account. Google’s page on finding your business is blunt about it: “To find your profile, you must sign in to the Google Account associated with it.” Then search your business name and city on Search or Maps.

The request-ownership page adds a test worth running before you conclude that somebody else holds the profile:

Tip: If you look for your Business Profile and can’t find the “Claim this business” or “Own this business” button, you might already be the owner.

If the button is missing and you are not the owner, the profile is verified by somebody, and you are in the third case rather than the second.

Claiming an unverified profile

Google’s procedure runs through Maps, not the dashboard: open Google Maps on a computer, search the business name and city or pick it off the map, select Claim this business and then Manage now, then choose a verification option. The app route is the same with an extra tap, under About.

The duplicates page states the same route and what it gets you: “If you find that your business is already on Google Maps but is not verified, you can claim and verify the profile.” Then, “Once verification is complete, you will own the Business Profile and can manage your business information.”

Requesting ownership of a profile somebody has already verified is a different act, with its own form, its own reply window and three documented outcomes. Google sets it out on its request-ownership page, and we have written that flow up separately rather than twice.

Verification is the gate on all three routes

Every route ends in the same place. Google’s verification page states the scope, “To edit your business info on Google, such as business name or business hours, and interact with customers, you need to verify your business.”, and the page on finding your business states the visibility half: “Only verified businesses can show their business info on Maps and Search.”

The method is not yours to pick: “Verification methods are automatically determined by Google and can’t be changed.” And the wait is published once: “To help maintain the integrity of your Business Profile, verification reviews take up to 5 business days.”, followed by “On rare occasions, reviews may take longer.”

The duplicate you create by guessing

This is the real cost of choosing wrong, and Google’s duplicates page leads with it: “You can have only one Business Profile for each business.” Multiple profiles, in Google’s words, “may mislead your customers and are against our policies”, and the consequence is plain: “If a profile is considered a duplicate, it won’t show on Google Search or Maps.”

The reasons a profile gets marked as one:

Google’s stated reason for a duplicate
“Existing verified profile: A verified profile already exists for the same business on Google.”
“Same address: Multiple profiles have the same address.”
“Different services: Multiple profiles exist for the same business that offer different services.”

The first row is exactly what happens when a reader who should have claimed adds instead. Undoing it is possible, with a warning attached: “When you remove a duplicate profile, all content and linked managers will be removed, so make sure to remove the correct profile.” And merging is lossy: “When 2 profiles are merged, their reviews are combined, but replies to reviews may be lost.”

What you can change before you own it

Not nothing. Google’s page on profile edits has a section for exactly this state: “If you haven’t verified your profile, you can still edit some info like your business name, business category, address, hours, phone number, and website. To edit all your info, verify your profile.” The same page times any edit: “Edits usually take up to 10 minutes to review, but sometimes it can take up to 30 days.”

What Google does not publish here

Whether the claim option is offered to you is not explained. Google says only that “The option to claim a profile isn’t always available.”, on two separate pages, and nothing we read says what decides it.

Nothing on the pages we read says what happens to the reviews already sitting on an unverified profile once you claim it: Google’s sentence promises you can manage your business information, not that the review history follows. We have not tested that and we are not going to assert it. No timeline is published for the claim itself either, beyond the verification window above.

The reviews do not wait for you. If the profile already has some, it is worth knowing in advance that you cannot delete a review somebody else wrote, what the reporting route actually covers, and how to answer a bad one. For a backlog, see what review tools actually publish.

The short version

Search for the business signed in to your own account. If no profile exists, add one. If one exists unverified, claim it through Maps and verify. If one exists and somebody has verified it, request ownership and do not add a second, because a duplicate does not show on Search or Maps and merging two costs you the replies.