Finding and merging duplicate Google listings

The most frustrating version of this problem is the one where everything you do is working and none of it is landing, because half of it is landing on a listing you have never logged into.

Duplicates are not rare and they are almost never created deliberately. They accumulate from ordinary events, and they are invisible from inside your own dashboard, which shows you only the listing you own.

What a duplicate costs you

• Your reviews are split. Fourteen on one, six on the other, and neither number is the one you actually earned, which matters because review count is part of how you rank.
• Google picks one to show, and it is frequently the one you are not maintaining.
• Customers land on stale hours, an old number, or a closed address.
• Every citation you build may be reinforcing the wrong profile.
• Duplicates are against the guidelines, so this is also a compliance problem sitting quietly in the background.

Where they come from

In our audits, essentially all of them trace to one of six events. Reading this list is usually enough for an owner to say which one applies to them.

1. 01A move. The new address was added as a fresh listing rather than edited on the existing one.
2. 02A change of ownership. The previous owner's listing was never transferred and still exists.
3. 03An agency. Someone created a listing to work on and never told anyone, or created one because they could not get access to yours.
4. 04A data aggregator. Business data feeds generate listings automatically, and one can appear without any human involvement.
5. 05A franchise or supplier. Head office created listings for its network, including one for you.
6. 06A well-meaning employee who could not find the login.

Six searches that find them

Twenty minutes, no tools. Do all six, because each one surfaces a different kind of duplicate.

1. 01Your business name plus your suburb, on Google Maps rather than in search. Maps shows near-matches that search collapses.
2. 02Your business name without any location, and scroll. A duplicate at an old address will appear separately.
3. 03Your phone number on its own. Two listings sharing one number is conclusive.
4. 04Your previous address, if you have moved. This is where the majority of duplicates are hiding.
5. 05Your previous trading name, if you have rebranded.
6. 06A misspelling of your name, and the version without the Pty Ltd or LLC.

What to do with each one you find

It is genuinely a duplicate of you

Report it as a duplicate through Google's process rather than trying to delete it. If it carries reviews, the merge is what preserves them, and a listing you simply mark as closed takes its reviews with it.

Which one survives matters. The one to keep is the one with the most reviews and the longest history, not necessarily the one you have the password for. Sort that out before you start, because it is much harder to reverse afterwards.

It is your old address and you have moved

Do not create a new listing at the new address if the old one is still yours. Edit the address on the existing profile, which carries your reviews and your history across. Creating a new one and abandoning the old is how a business restarts from zero without meaning to.

It is the previous owner's business

If you bought the business and trade under the same name at the same address, request ownership of that listing rather than starting fresh. The reviews on it were earned at that address for that business, and they transfer.

It is not actually a duplicate

Two things that look like duplicates and are not: a genuinely separate location, which is entitled to its own listing, and a practitioner listing in professions where individual practitioners may have one alongside the business. Merging either of those away is a mistake that is tedious to undo.

Afterwards

1. 01Check the surviving listing's details are the ones you want, because a merge can bring fields across. The field by field checklist is the fastest way through it.
2. 02Confirm the review count is the combined total, not one of the two.
3. 03Update any directory that was pointing at the merged listing.
4. 04Write down who owns the login, in a place that survives the person leaving.

Duplicates are one half of the consistency problem. The other half is your details disagreeing across the wider web, which is covered in NAP consistency. If the duplicate turned out to be the reason you are not appearing, the full diagnosis order lists what to check next, and the local SEO checklist covers everything the listing sits inside.