Do you claim and update Google Business Profile for every location or only the main one?

For local clients with several branches, I keep seeing the main location with a full profile and the other branches with old hours and no photos. Some of those branches then outrank the main one for nearby searches anyway. Do you set up and maintain a separate profile and landing page per location, or only for the main one? And how often do you check hours and categories after the first setup?

 

I would claim and maintain a profile for every branch that customers can actually visit, not just the main one. I was just reading Google's own help docs on this: a Business Profile has to be added/claimed and verified to show properly on Search and Maps, and Google describes the profile as something the owner should keep accurate and up to date (address, hours, contact info, photos). An unclaimed branch listing is exactly how you end up with stale hours and no photos, since anyone can suggest edits to it and nobody on your side is there to catch them.

On the landing page question, a dedicated page per location makes sense when it has genuinely useful local info (address, hours, parking, which services that branch offers). If every branch page is just a copy with a different city name, that won't do much for you.

For maintenance, I would recheck hours and categories at least quarterly, plus any time hours actually change (seasonal hours, holidays, renovations). Google's guidelines also stress keeping the address precise and choosing the fewest categories that describe the core business, so a quick monthly glance is cheap insurance against a branch ranking on outdated info.

 

Thanks both, that video verification step is a real blocker for service area businesses. sarahk, did you end up with one profile set as a service area business covering all regions? mcgram, agreed for walk in branches, the ones I see doing best keep hours and photos current on each profile and link each one to its own location page.

 

Honestly the stale branches usually happen because nobody owns them. Put every location in one Business Profile manager account and give one person a monthly 10-minute checklist: hours, a couple of fresh photos, and a quick look at new reviews. For the ones outranking the main location, that's usually just proximity, so I'd make sure each branch has its own page with a real local phone number and the same name/address wording as the profile. Holiday hours are the one thing worth setting ahead of time.

 

Worth keeping an eye on the "Google updated your profile" notices too. On branches nobody looks after, hours often get changed through user suggestions, and if nobody accepts or rejects them Google may just apply them on its own.

 

Good points both. The single owner with a monthly checklist is the part most businesses skip, and AmberEcho730 is right about suggested edits, I have seen holiday hours flipped by user suggestions nobody reviewed. Turning on email alerts for profile updates in the manager account catches most of those.

 

One thing worth saying about the branch outranking the main location: that is mostly proximity doing its job, not a sign the main profile is broken. Google weights distance to the searcher very heavily on local queries, so a branch will naturally win the searches happening near it. The answer is not to merge everything into one profile — every location customers can visit should have its own claimed and verified profile, which matches Google's own guidance.

Two additions to the maintenance routine: first, search Maps for each address and clear out duplicates, because an old unverified listing at the same address will split reviews and can outrank the real one. Second, encourage reviews on each branch's own profile rather than funnelling everything to the main one — a branch with zero reviews looks abandoned and underperforms. Keep the name, address and phone number identical on the profile and its location page, and recheck hours after every holiday period, not just quarterly.