Multiple locations on Google Business Profile: a dental group guide

For a dental group, managing multiple locations on Google Business Profile comes down to one rule and a handful of details. The rule is one profile for each real, staffed location that patients visit. The details are how you name those profiles, who has access, how you verify them, and how you handle individual dentists, separate clinics and practices you acquire. Get them right and each site can compete in its own town's map pack. Get them wrong and you risk duplicate listings, suspended profiles or reviews landing on the wrong practice. This guide covers each step, using Google's own guidelines.

One profile for each location

Google's guidelines for representing your business are clear: "Do not create more than one page for each location of your business, either in a single account or multiple accounts." Each practice building gets its own profile, with its own address, hours, phone number, photos and reviews.

Two consequences follow for groups:

• You cannot add several addresses to one profile. If you have asked "how do I add multiple addresses in Google Business Profile", the answer is that you create a separate profile for each address.
• Only real premises qualify. Google says that a location you rent but do not operate from, a virtual office, is not eligible for a Business Profile. A head office that patients never visit does not need a patient-facing listing.

Naming rules for dental groups

Google says your name should reflect your real-world name, "as used consistently on your shopfront, website, stationery". For chains it adds that "all business locations within the same country must have the same name for all locations", and gives the example that every Home Depot should be "The Home Depot", not "The Home Depot at Springfield".

For a dental group, that means:

• do not add the town to the name on Google unless it is genuinely part of the name on the sign
• do not add treatments or keywords to the name, which Google says can lead to suspension
• keep the name identical across every site that trades under the group brand

Google allows two exceptions that matter to groups. Sub-brands may have their own name if it is applied consistently. And "if some of your locations consistently use a different name on their shop front, website or stationery, these locations can use this different name." Some groups keep an acquired practice's local name on the building. If that name is on the sign, the website and the letterhead, it is the right name for that profile.

Categories, phone numbers and websites

Categories. Google says all locations of a business that provide the same service must share the same category. Every general dental practice in the group should use the same primary category.

Phone numbers. Google asks you to "use a local phone number instead of a central call centre helpline number whenever possible", and says the number must be under the direct control of the business. If your group uses a central booking team, make sure calls to each profile's number reach someone who can book for that site.

Websites. Google asks for a phone number that connects to the individual location, or "a website that represents your individual business location". Link each profile to that practice's own page on your site, not the group home page. A location page with the address, hours, team, treatments and directions helps patients and helps Google match the profile to the right place.

Access: business groups, owners and managers

Do not run a group's listings from one person's personal Google account. Google describes business groups as "like a shared folder for your profiles": owners and managers added to a business group can access all current and future profiles placed in it. You can move existing profiles into a group from Business Profile Manager by choosing Actions and then Transfer businesses.

Google's owner and manager roles work like this:

Make a group-level account the primary owner, give each practice manager manager access to their own site, and keep at least two owners so you are never locked out. Google says new owners and managers must wait seven days before they can use some features, so add people before you need them.

Bulk verification for 10 or more locations

If your group has 10 or more locations, Google lets you add, verify and manage them in bulk using a spreadsheet upload. To request bulk verification, Google requires 10 or more locations of the same business, and says duplicate, suspended or disabled profiles do not count towards that minimum. Your spreadsheet must include all the profiles you manage, and Google reviews the account details before approving. Google also says that to stay bulk verified you need to keep reviewing the account for errors and keep the profiles up to date.

Groups with fewer than 10 sites verify each profile individually, using whichever method Google offers for that location.

How do you open a second location on Google?

When the group opens a new site, create its profile before the doors open. Google lets you add an opening date up to a year ahead, and once verified, the profile appears on Google 90 days before that date. Until opening, users cannot post reviews or photos on the profile. After opening, it shows a "Recently opened" label for 90 days. Use the pre-opening window to add photos of the new premises and posts about the opening.

When you acquire a practice

An acquired practice already has a profile, often with years of reviews. Keep it. Deleting it and starting again throws those reviews away. The steps:

1. Make the profile handover a completion item. Ask the seller to add your group account as an owner and transfer primary ownership before completion, allowing for Google's seven-day wait.
2. If the seller cannot or will not hand it over, you can request ownership through Google. Google says the current owner is emailed and has three days to respond, after which you may have the option to claim the profile.
3. Decide the name. If the practice will keep its local name on the sign and website, keep it on Google. If you rebrand, change the name on Google when the sign changes, not before.
4. Update the details together. Phone, website link, hours and services should change on the same day as your own site and directories.
5. Move the profile into your business group so the group team can manage it.

Individual dentists' profiles

Google treats dentists as individual practitioners who can, in some cases, have their own profiles. Its rules depend on how many public-facing practitioners work at the site:

• Several dentists at one location. The practice should have its own profile, separate from any practitioner's, and a practitioner's profile should include only their name, not the practice name.
• One dentist at a branded location. Google says it is best to share a single profile named "[brand]: [practitioner name]".
• Who qualifies. Only public-facing practitioners who can be contacted at the verified location during stated hours. Support staff should not have profiles, and a practitioner should not have several profiles for different specialisms.

Practitioner profiles collect their own reviews, separate from the practice's, and need managing when a dentist leaves. Decide as a group whether you want them, and have a process for when a clinician moves on.

Separate clinics at the same address

Can you have two businesses at the same address? Google allows departments within a business to have their own profiles if they operate as distinct public-facing entities. It says each department's name must differ from the main business, each should have a distinct category, and they typically have a separate customer entrance. A referral centre or a separately branded clinic sharing a building might qualify. A treatment room inside the practice does not, and neither does a treatment you want to rank for. If in doubt, keep one profile.

Reviews and reporting by location

Reviews belong to each location's profile, which is exactly what patients want: they are choosing a practice in their town, not a brand. Make sure each site's review link points to its own profile, and that the team at each practice replies to its own reviews, in a consistent group voice. Our guide on how to reply to Google reviews can be the basis of a group policy.

Judge each site against its own town too. In our study of 1,489 UK places, the median practice holding a map pack place had 70 reviews where 5 or fewer practices compete and 249 where 12 or more do, so a single review target for the whole group will be too high for some sites and too low for others. Map visibility also varies across each town, which our guide to measuring map visibility by people reached explains.

A multi-location checklist

1. One profile per staffed location. Remove duplicates and anything at a virtual office.
2. The same name and primary category across the group brand, with local names only where they are on the sign.
3. A local phone number and a location page link for every profile.
4. All profiles in a business group, with a group primary owner and at least two owners.
5. Bulk verification if you have 10 or more locations.
6. A written handover step for every acquisition, started before completion.
7. A practitioner profile policy, including what happens when a dentist leaves.
8. Review links, replies and targets set site by site.