Duplicate Google listings — how to find and fix them

A surprising number of businesses have two, or three, Google listings without knowing it. The effects are real: reviews split across them, customers directed to an address you left in 2019, and a ranking held below where it should be.

Here is how to find and fix it.

How duplicates happen

Google created one automatically. Google builds listings from other data sources — directories, aggregators, government records. You may have had a listing before you ever heard of Google Business Profile.

A customer added you. Anyone can add a missing business to Maps. Well-meaning customers do this often.

You forgot the first one. You set one up years ago on an old Gmail, lost the password, and made a new one. This is extremely common.

You moved. A new listing was created at the new address and the old one was never closed.

Your marketing agency made one. They could not access yours, so they created another.

A branch was set up as a copy of the main listing rather than a distinct location.

Why it matters

Reviews split. Forty on one, twelve on the other. Instead of one strong listing you have two weak ones, and customers see whichever Google chooses to show.

Google gets less confident. Conflicting information about the same business at the same address reduces certainty, and certainty affects position.

Customers go to the wrong place. The old address, the old number.

Your work is wasted. Photos, posts and hours updated on one while customers see the other.

Finding them

1. Search Maps for your business name. Look carefully — a duplicate is often slightly different: "Sharma Dental" vs "Sharma Dental Care".

2. Search your phone number in quotes on Google. This surfaces listings you did not create.

3. Search your address on Maps. Zoom right in and look at every pin at your location. Duplicates sometimes sit a few metres away.

4. Search old details — your previous address, your previous phone number, your old shop name.

5. Check inside your Business Profile Manager. Sign in and look at all locations on the account. Also check any other Google account anyone in the business might have used.

Fixing it

The right move depends on what you find.

You own both

Sign in and use the option to remove or merge the duplicate. Google will usually offer to merge when it detects two listings for the same business at the same address.

Keep the one with the most reviews. That is the asset. Before merging, make sure the one you are keeping has all the correct current information.

Merging is not always possible — sometimes Google will only let you mark one as a duplicate, which suppresses it. That is an acceptable outcome.

You own one, someone else owns the other

Claim the one you do not own. Open it, choose "Claim this business" or "Own this business?", and go through the verification. Since you are the real owner and can verify at the address, you will usually succeed, though it can take time if the current owner contests it.

Once you own both, merge as above.

Neither is claimed

Claim the better one — more reviews, more accurate — verify it, then report the other as a duplicate.

It is a listing at an old address

Do not just delete it. If it has reviews, they are worth keeping.

Instead, update that listing to your current address and details, and let it be your one true listing. Google supports moving a business. Deleting throws away the reviews permanently.

If you genuinely have two locations, both should exist, each with its own distinct address and phone.

Reporting a duplicate

On the listing you want removed, choose Suggest an edit → Close or remove → Duplicate, and point at the correct one.

Expect it to take from a few days to a few weeks, and expect that not every report succeeds first time. If it is rejected and you are certain, use the Business Profile help channel with evidence — photographs of the premises, a utility bill, your registration.

While you wait

Keep the listing customers are actually seeing correct and current. Do not neglect it just because you intend to merge it away.

If the duplicate is showing an old number, update that number on the duplicate to your current one so nobody is lost in the meantime.

Preventing new ones

• One Google account owns the listing, and it belongs to the business, not to a staff member or an agency. Write the login somewhere safe.
• Add a manager rather than sharing the password. People leave.
• When you move, update the existing listing. Never create a new one.
• Search for yourself twice a year and check nothing new has appeared.

Fifteen minutes, twice a year, prevents a problem that quietly costs you position and reviews.

Apna.live builds your website from your primary Google listing, so everything points at one place. See yours.