How to Transfer Reviews on Google My Business

Your Google reviews aren't just stars, they're hard-earned trust signals that tell new customers you’re the real deal. So, when you move, rebrand, or find a duplicate business listing, the thought of losing those reviews is terrifying. This guide will walk you through exactly how you can transfer or, more accurately, preserve your Google Business Profile reviews across different scenarios, from fixing duplicate profiles to handling a business move.

Can You Actually Transfer Google Reviews? The Short Answer Is... Complicated.

Let's get the biggest misconception out of the way first: you cannot manually copy a review from one Google Business Profile and paste it onto another. Google doesn't offer a "transfer reviews" button. When people talk about "transferring" reviews, they are referring to a process of having Google merge duplicate business listings or associating an existing profile with a new location, which carries the reviews along with it.

So, you can’t cherry-pick your best reviews and move them to a new profile. However, if your situation involves one of the common scenarios below, you have a very good chance of keeping your review history intact. It all comes down to following Google's official processes and providing the right information.

Scenario 1: You’re Moving Your Business to a New Physical Address

This is one of the most straightforward situations. You have an established customer base and a great review history, but your lease is up or you found a better spot. Your primary goal here is to update your location information without losing your profile's authority.

The Right Way: Update Your Existing Profile

The golden rule of moving your business is to never create a new Google Business Profile. If you do, you lose everything - your reviews, your ranking history, your photos, and any questions and answers. Instead, you just need to edit your current profile.

Here’s what to do:

• Log in to your Google Business Profile Manager: Head to google.com/business and select the business you’re managing. You can also search for "my business" on Google search.
• Go to "Edit Profile": Click on the "Edit profile" button, then select "Location."
• Update Your Address: Click on the pencil icon next to your current business address. Carefully enter the new street address, city, state, and zip code. Sometimes it takes Google a moment to locate the address on the map, so be patient and double-check your pin placement.
• Save Your Changes: Click "Save" and wait. Google will review the change, and this can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few days. Don't panic if it's not instant.
• Re-Verify if Asked: Sometimes, a significant change like an address update can trigger a re-verification process. Google wants to confirm that your business is legitimately at the new location. This usually involves a postcard sent to the new address with a verification code. This is normal and a good sign that Google is protecting your listing's integrity.

By simply updating your address on your existing profile, your reviews, photos, and post history will remain untouched. They are tied to the profile itself, not its physical location.

What NOT to Do

Whatever you do, don't mark your current profile as "Permanently Closed" and then create a brand new profile for the new location. This is guaranteed to orphan all of your hard-earned reviews on the closed listing. Stick to updating your current profile, and you'll be fine.

Scenario 2: You’ve Found Duplicate Listings (The Most Common Problem)

Discovering a duplicate business listing can be unsettling. Suddenly, your reviews and customer check-ins are getting split between two different profiles, confusing customers and diluting your online authority. This is the most common reason business owners need to "transfer" reviews through a profile merge.

How Do Duplicate Profiles Happen?

Duplicates are more common than you'd think. They often appear by accident:

• An old employee or marketing agency created one years ago and forgot about it.
• Google's algorithm automatically created a listing based on data from other online directories.
• You went through a slight name change, and someone accidentally created a new listing instead of updating the old one.

The Fix: A Step-by-Step Guide to Merging Profiles

To fix this, you need to ask Google Support to merge the duplicate profile into your primary, "correct" profile. When this happens, the unique reviews from the duplicate listing are typically moved over to the primary one.

Step 1: Identify the 'Keeper' and the 'Duplicate'

First, figure out which profile you want to keep. This is usually the older, more established profile, the one with more reviews, or the one that already has seniority in search rankings. It should be claimed and verified by you. The other one is the duplicate that you want Google to get rid of.

For example, let's say "Jen’s Coffee House" has two listings. One is verified, has 50 reviews, and ranks well. The other one just popped up, has only 3 reviews, and incorrect hours. The first is your "keeper," and the second is the "duplicate."

Step 2: Collect Your Information and Access Links

Before you contact Google, you need to do a little homework to make the process as smooth as possible for their support team. Don't overload them with information - just give them exactly what they need.

• Find the public URL for both listings by searching for them on Google Maps and copying the URL from your browser's address bar.
• Label them clearly in a document: "Profile to Keep URL" and "Profile to Merge/Remove URL."
• Confirm the names and addresses are exactly the same for both listings, or at least very similar. If they have different information, update the one you're keeping to be correct first.

Step 3: Contact Google Business Profile Support

Once you have your info ready, it’s time to request the merge.

1. Go to the Google Business Profile help homepage. Often, there’s no direct "merge profile" button, so you might need to find the "Contact Us" prompt.
2. When asked what your issue is, type something like "merge duplicate business profile."
3. You will be taken through a series of questions. Select the business profile you need help with (the one you want to keep).
4. Eventually, you should be given the option to contact support via email. This is usually the most effective method for this type of detailed request.
5. In the email form, be clear and concise. Write a simple message like:

"Hello, I have discovered a duplicate listing for my business. I would like to request that you merge the duplicate listing into my main, correct listing. The reviews from the duplicate should be moved over to my primary profile."

"This is the profile to KEEP: [Paste URL of your main profile]"

"This is the duplicate profile to REMOVE/MERGE: [Paste URL of the duplicate profile]"

Step 4: Be Patient and Follow Up If Needed

The merging process is handled manually by the support team, so it’s not instant. It can take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks to see the change. Periodically check your email for a response and keep an eye on the duplicate listing. Once the merge is complete, the duplicate profile will disappear, and you should see its unique reviews appear on your primary listing.

Scenario 3: Your Business Changed Ownership or Rebranded

When a business changes hands, the new owner often wants to keep the valuable review history. Google's policy here depends on the scale of the change.

For Minor Changes (Same Name, New Owner)

If you're taking over an existing business and its name and core services remain the same (e.g., buying a pizza place and continuing to operate it as a pizza place), Google's guidelines recommend you just update the ownership in the Business Profile manager. You get to keep the original listing and all its reviews.

New owners should be proactive about this. It's good practice to post an update via a Google Post and respond to some of the recent-but-predecessor reviews, thanking the user for their visit and introducing yourself as the new owner. It shows transparency and helps manage customer expectations.

For Major Rebrands or a Whole New Business Concept

If you purchase a storefront that was a coffee shop and you're turning it into a bike repair shop, that represents a substantial change. In this case, Google advises that you mark the old business as "Permanently Closed" and create a completely new profile for your new business.

In this situation, you unfortunately can't transfer the reviews because they are irrelevant to your new business concept. Reviews for the coffee at the old place don't help customers decide on your bike repair services.

What You Absolutely Cannot Do

To protect the integrity of the review ecosystem, Google has strict rules about review manipulation. Avoid these temptations at all costs:

• Don't copy and paste reviews. This doesn’t work and makes your business look dishonest.
• Don't ask a happy customer to re-post their review on a new profile. Google's algorithms are clever and may filter out reviews that appear in multiple places. It also puts an inconvenient burden on your customer.
• You can't transfer reviews from one platform to another. For example, you can't move your stellar Yelp reviews over to Google. Each platform's reviews must be earned natively.

Final Thoughts

As we've seen, you can't just move Google reviews on a whim. The key is in responsible profile management - whether that means properly updating your address, reaching out to Google support to merge duplicate listings, or correctly managing an ownership change. Staying ahead of these administrative tasks ensures your well-earned social proof keeps working for you.

Mastering your online reputation on Google is just one piece of the puzzle. Answering comments and messages on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook is equally important for building a strong brand connection. To help with the chaos of managing all those platforms, we built Postbase. We designed a clean, simple, and reliable tool to let you plan your calendar, reliably schedule content (especially Reels and TikToks), and manage all your conversations from a single inbox, so that you can spend less time juggling tabs and more time growing your business.