ReviewHeroGoogle Reviews for Multi-Location Businesses
Google reviews for multi-location businesses: Google wants one profile per location, and a single shared review link quietly starves all the others.
The short version
- Google's guidelines allow exactly one Business Profile per location, and every location needs its own review link to collect reviews of its own.
- A single shared link pools every review onto one profile, while proximity, rating and recency are judged location by location.
- Google's own help pages disagree about whether reviews follow a business that moves, so ask Google before you relocate instead of assuming.
Open a second location and the review problem changes shape. The first shop has eighty reviews and a decent rating. The new one has three. The obvious fix is to send every customer, from both shops, the same review link that has been working for years.
That fix is the mistake this post is about. It looks efficient, it feels harmless, and it leaves the new location exactly where it started while the old one gets reviews describing visits that happened somewhere else.
Google reviews for multi-location businesses start with one profile per location
Google's guidelines for representing your business (as published at that URL, accessed 9 October 2026; Google does not date these pages) are blunt about the structure: "Do not create more than one page for each location of your business, either in a single account or multiple accounts." The inverse holds too. Each real location gets a profile, and each profile is a separate entity with its own reviews, its own rating and its own place in search results.
What counts as a location is narrower than many owners assume. Google's policy overview says a business qualifies only if it makes "in-person contact with customers during its stated hours." A rented mailbox or a virtual office where nobody works does not qualify, and the same page says so directly.
A few edge cases come up constantly for growing businesses:
| Situation | What Google's guidelines say |
|---|---|
| Two shops, same brand, same city | One profile each, same business name on both |
| A service business with two offices | One profile per office, but only with "separate service areas and separate staff at each location" |
| Two brands sharing one building | Do not combine them; "create two profiles instead" |
| A distinct department, such as a service centre | Its own profile, with a name different from the main business |
| Practitioners inside a practice | The practice has its own profile, separate from the practitioner's |
The naming rule catches chains out
The same guidelines say "all business locations within the same country must have the same name for all locations." Google's own example of a name that is not allowed is "The Home Depot at Springfield." The correct version is "The Home Depot." Adding the neighbourhood to the name feels like helpful labelling, but the guidelines warn that unnecessary information in a business name "could result in the suspension of your Business Profile." The address already tells the searcher which branch they are looking at.
There is an exception: if some locations consistently trade under a different name on their storefront, website or stationery, those locations may use it. Consistency is the test, not preference.
Ten locations changes how you verify
Once a business has 10 or more locations, Google offers bulk verification through the Business Profile manager under Verifications, then Chain. Duplicate, suspended or disabled profiles do not count towards the ten. Google asks for a spreadsheet of every profile you manage and warns it may ask for evidence if your chain size does not match your account. Agencies managing several unrelated businesses in one account cannot use it.
For access, Google recommends a business group, and the roles page confirms that both owners and managers can respond to reviews. That matters for the reply side of this post. A local manager can answer their own location's reviews without being handed ownership of every profile.
Why one shared review link is a mistake
Every Google review link belongs to exactly one profile. Google's own instructions for the share link have you open a specific Business Profile, select Read Reviews, then Get more reviews, and copy the link. The page says nothing about multiple locations because there is nothing to say: the link points to the profile you opened. No Google page describes a single link that spreads reviews across branches.
So a business that sends one link to every customer is choosing, whether it means to or not, to put every review on one profile. Three things follow.
The other locations stay invisible. Google's local ranking page names relevance, distance and prominence, and says prominence partly reflects "how many reviews you have," adding that "more reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking." Whitespark's 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors, a survey of 47 local search practitioners scoring 187 factors, ranks proximity to the searcher second, a high Google rating sixth, the number of Google reviews with text ninth, and recency of reviews eleventh for the local pack. That survey is expert opinion rather than measured ranking data, but every one of those factors is a property of a single profile. A review on the flagship does nothing for the branch across town.
The reviews become inaccurate. Google's Maps content policy says contributions "should reflect a genuine experience at a place or business" and asks people to post "based on your experience" at "a specific location." No sentence in it reads "do not send a customer to another branch's profile," and this post will not pretend one does. But a review that praises the parking at a location the customer never visited is exactly the kind of content that policy describes as not genuine, and it misleads the next reader.
Customers notice recency, location by location. BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey of 1,002 US adults found that 74% look for reviews from the last three months and 32% look for reviews from the last two weeks, up from 20%. It also found 68% will only use a business rated four stars or higher, up from 55%. A new branch with three reviews from last spring fails both tests, however good the flagship's numbers are.
On whether people judge a chain by the branch in front of them, the only direct figures are older. BrightLocal's 2024 survey of 1,141 consumers found 89% said reviews of a local branch would affect their decision to use that store in some way. That is 2024 data, and the 2025 and 2026 editions did not repeat the question, so treat it as a direction rather than a current number.
Sending the right link to the right customer
The fix is not complicated, but it has to be designed in rather than remembered at the counter.
- Generate a link for every profile. Open each location's profile in a computer browser and copy its own link from Get more reviews. Google notes the link and QR code can only be generated that way, not in the phone app.
- Tie the customer record to a location. Whatever system holds the customer's email after the sale needs a field saying where the sale happened. Without it, no tool can choose the right link.
- Send the link that matches the visit. Whatever sends the request, a hand-typed email or a tool like ReviewHero sending it by email, the link inside it is the only thing that decides which profile receives the review.
- Keep the ask identical across locations. Google's policy forbids businesses to "selectively solicit positive reviews," and it also forbids requiring "that staff solicit a certain number of reviews" or reviews "that include specific content." A per-store leaderboard of review counts sits uncomfortably close to that second line. Ask every customer, at every branch, the same way.
You will see a URL pattern built from a Place ID passed around as "the official review link." It is
widely used, but this post could not find it documented anywhere on Google's developer site. The
documented routes are the Get more reviews link and the Places API's writeAReviewUri field, which
Google describes as "a link to write a review for this place on Google Maps." Google's
Place ID page also
notes that Place IDs "may change over time," which is one more reason to copy the link Google gives
you rather than build your own.
When locations move, merge or close
Multi-location businesses change shape more often than single shops, and reviews do not always behave the way owners expect.
Duplicates. If the same location ended up with two profiles, Google can merge them. Its merge page says "their reviews are combined, but replies to reviews may be lost," and every merge request is reviewed by Google. Removing a duplicate instead of merging it removes all of its content.
Moves. Here Google's own pages disagree, and it is worth saying so plainly. One help page on moving reviews says that if you move "and keep the same business name, Google will transfer your reviews automatically," with exceptions for categories such as hotels and golf courses, and warns "do not create a new Business Profile because of a change in a physical location." The policy overview says a relocated business must "mark the existing profile as permanently closed" and "create a new Business Profile at the new location." I cannot tell you which page Google's reviewers will follow for your category. Before moving a location, contact Google support with the specifics, and keep a record of what you were told.
Closures. Reviews stay on a profile marked permanently closed, and that profile may still appear in Search and Maps. There is no owner-facing tool to move a closed branch's reviews onto a surviving one. The only transfer Google offers is by contacting support after a new profile was created by mistake following a move or an ownership change.
The franchise question nobody can answer cleanly
The FTC's rule on consumer reviews and testimonials, in force since 21 October 2024, applies to any "business" that sells products or services, which plainly covers each franchisee. It bans review incentives conditioned on a particular sentiment and bans suppressing reviews. It also says an officer or manager who asks employees for reviews must tell them to disclose the relationship, and "manager" covers anyone who supervises other employees, which includes a store manager. The rule has no franchise-specific provision, and it does not say whether a franchisor is liable for what happens at a franchisee's outlet. Anyone who tells you the rule settles that question is guessing.
Violations carry civil penalties assessed per violation, at the inflation-adjusted maximum the FTC set in January 2025. The 2026 adjustment was cancelled, so the 2025 amounts still apply.
This is general information, not legal advice. Rules vary and change, so check with a lawyer about your own situation, especially if you operate under a franchise agreement.
What this post deliberately leaves out
Several numbers circulate on agency blogs about multi-location reviews, and none could be traced to a primary source from 2025 or 2026. The claim that a 0.1-star increase lifts conversion by 25% comes from a 2019 vendor study with no current edition. "Near me" growth figures trace back to old Think with Google material, not anything Google has published recently. And no 2025 or 2026 dataset could be found that measures how far ratings vary between locations of the same brand. Each of those would have made a tidy paragraph. None is reliable enough to steer a business decision.
FAQ
How should Google reviews for multi-location businesses be collected?
Location by location. Each branch has its own Business Profile and its own review link, and each customer should get the link for the branch that served them. One link for the whole brand puts every review on a single profile.
Can I move reviews from one location's profile to another?
Not yourself. Google merges reviews when it merges true duplicates of the same location, and it will transfer reviews if contacted after a new profile was created by mistake following a move or an ownership change. There is no tool for moving reviews between two genuine locations.
Should the branch name go in the business name?
No, unless that branch consistently trades under a different name. Google's guidelines want the same name on every location in a country, and the address does the job of telling branches apart.
What to do next
- List every location you operate and confirm each has exactly one verified profile, with the same business name and no neighbourhood tacked on.
- Search Maps for duplicates of each location and request a merge for any you find, accepting that old replies may be lost.
- Copy each profile's own link from Get more reviews and store it next to that location in your customer records.
- Make sure every review request carries the link for the location where the customer was served, and that every branch asks every customer the same way.
- Before moving or closing a location, ask Google support in writing what will happen to its reviews.
Put this on autopilot
ReviewHero asks every customer once, follows up politely, and stops the moment they open the review link. Free to download, and you can set it up from your phone.
