Notes
Who owns your Google Business Profile?
It sits above the search results, it carries every review you have earned, and those reviews cannot be transferred. It is also the asset owners are least likely to actually control.
Most local businesses worry about the website and never think about the profile. That is backwards. When somebody searches for a shop by name or by "near me", the map result appears above the organic results, carries the star rating, the photos, the hours and the phone number, and is the thing most people tap. For a lot of businesses the website is what people read after the profile has already sold them.
The profile is also the asset with the worst ownership record, for a simple reason. Claiming it requires verification, verification is fiddly, and so it is very often done by whoever was setting up the marketing at the time. That person then holds it. Nobody wrote anything down because at the time it was a chore somebody kindly absorbed.
The difference between holding it and merely being added to it is not cosmetic, and you cannot see which one you have from the outside. You have to look from inside the account.
The roles, and which one you need
A profile has a primary owner, it can have additional owners, and it can have managers. People routinely assume that being able to edit the profile means they own it. Managers can edit almost everything, which is exactly why the assumption survives until the day it matters.
| Role | Can do | Cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Primary owner | Everything, including transferring primary ownership and deleting the profile | Nothing. This is the role you want |
| Owner | Edit the profile, reply to reviews, add and remove managers | Remove the primary owner, or transfer primary ownership |
| Manager | Edit the profile, reply to reviews, post updates | Remove any owner, transfer ownership, or delete the profile. Can be removed at any time by an owner |
Read the bottom row again. A manager can be removed by an owner, instantly, without notice. If your marketing supplier is the primary owner and you are a manager, then your access to the single most valuable listing your business has is held entirely at their discretion.
How to check, in about five minutes
- Sign in to Google with the account you believe controls the business, and go to the business profile manager. Searching your own business name while signed in also works, and shows the management panel directly in the results if you have access.
- Open the profile and find the section for people with access. It is usually under a heading about managers or users.
- Look at your own row. It will say which role you hold. If it says Manager, you do not own the profile, whatever the invoice said.
- Look at every other row. Note any address that is not your business. A personal address belonging to a former employee is as much of an exposure as an agency address.
- If you cannot see the panel at all, you have no access to the profile. That is a different and more urgent answer than being a manager.
What to do if you are only a manager
Ask the primary owner to transfer primary ownership to an account your business controls. Frame it as housekeeping rather than as an accusation, because in most cases it genuinely is housekeeping, and a supplier who set it up as a favour years ago will often move it without any argument at all. Send the request in writing so there is a record of the date you asked.
Transfer to an account the business owns, not to a person. A profile owned by the personal Google account of a manager who later leaves is the same problem with a different name on it.
If the request is refused or ignored, Google publishes a process for requesting ownership of a profile somebody else holds. The current owner is given a window to respond, and what happens next depends on whether they do. That process changes often enough that it is worth reading the current version rather than a description of it, including one written here.
The reviews are the part you cannot rebuild
Everything else on a profile can be recreated. Hours, photos, categories, the description, the phone number. Reviews cannot. They are attached to the profile, they carry the dates they were written, and there is no supported way to move them to a different listing. A business that loses its profile and starts a new one starts at zero reviews with a competitor sitting above it holding years of yours.
This is also why duplicate profiles are worth taking seriously rather than ignoring. Two listings for one business split the reviews between them, and the one that ranks is not necessarily the one you have been collecting on.
That is the whole argument for checking this today rather than at the point you need it. The check costs five minutes. The failure costs every review you have ever earned.
Questions
Is the Google Business Profile really more important than the website?
For most local businesses that people search for by name or by "near me", yes, because the map result appears above the organic results and carries the rating and the phone number. The website matters, and it does a job the profile cannot do, but the profile is usually what decides whether the visit happens at all.
I can edit the profile. Does that mean I own it?
No. Managers can edit almost everything an owner can, which is why the assumption is so common. The difference only becomes visible when someone tries to remove somebody else, transfer ownership, or delete the listing. Check the role rather than inferring it from what you are able to change.
Can I move my reviews to a new profile?
No. Reviews are attached to the profile they were left on and there is no supported way to transfer them. This is the reason profile ownership is worth more attention than most owners give it, and the reason duplicate listings are worth resolving rather than ignoring.
Our former marketing company still owns the profile. What now?
Ask in writing for primary ownership to be transferred to an account your business controls, and keep the date. If that is refused or ignored, Google publishes a process for requesting ownership of a profile held by someone else, which gives the current holder a window to respond. If the relationship is in dispute, the ownership question and the contract question are the same question, and that is one for a lawyer rather than for a marketing supplier.
Should the profile be owned by the business or by me personally?
By an account the business controls and can hand on. A profile owned by an individual personal account is the same exposure whether that individual is a supplier or your own manager, because it leaves with them.