Google Business Profile with multiple locations: groups, bulk upload and store codes (and what 9 chains get wrong)

Google Business Profile does not let you add a second address to the same profile: every location that serves customers in person gets its own profile, and the profiles are kept together in a business group inside Business Profile Manager. From 10 locations upwards Google adds bulk upload with a spreadsheet and bulk verification, and every location needs its own unique store code.

It sounds like an afternoon's work.

Then you open the profiles of real chains and find:

• the same shop sign written four different ways across ten stores in one city (Kiko);
• ten profiles out of ten sending people to the home page or a generic store list, never to the page for that store (Carpisa);
• three profiles sharing the same phone number and home page, both belonging to head office (Mail Boxes Etc.).

These are not made-up examples. They are the profiles of nine chains within 12 km of central Milan, read on 10 November 2026. The full numbers are further down.

Why listen to us?

Because we see the multi-location problem in our clients' numbers. Contesini Consulenze has two branches in the province of Mantua, Italy: we built the landing page, the tracking and campaigns focused on the area around each branch. In seven months that brought in 299 enquiries at €7.20 each.

What has that got to do with Google profiles?

With two branches, every enquiry has to know which door to walk through. The map works the same way: one profile per location, with its own page and its own phone number, or the customer ends up in the wrong place. Or nowhere.

In this guide:

• when each location needs its own profile, and when it doesn't;
• how to run 2 to 9 locations with business groups, and 10 or more with the spreadsheet;
• the store code rules that most guides leave out;
• our check of 86 profiles from 9 chains in Milan: names, websites and phone numbers;
• who should own the profiles, and what changes in AI answers.

Let's start.

One profile per location, never two addresses on one profile (with two exceptions)

The rule is in Google's guidelines for representing your business on Google: don't create more than one page for each location, whether in one account or several. It works the other way round too: one profile can't show two addresses.

There are two exceptions.

• Practitioners: a doctor or solicitor who deals directly with the public can have a personal profile, even inside a practice that already has one. How the practice profile and practitioner profiles fit together is covered in our Google Business Profile guide.
• Departments: inside universities, hospitals or large stores a department can have its own profile, as long as it has its own name and a different primary category. Google's example of what not to do is an Apple department inside Best Buy stores.

Then there's the shared address: a pharmacy inside a supermarket or a café inside a hotel each get their own profile, under different names.

What if the second location doesn't see customers?

Then it isn't a location as far as Google is concerned. A warehouse or back office gets no profile; a business that travels to customers uses one profile with a service area.

If a location already has two profiles, that's a different problem, solved as explained in our guide to duplicate Google Business listings. Which location Google shows to a searcher depends on the three rankings described in our local SEO guide.

2 to 9 locations: one profile at a time, then a group (the button appears from the second)

Below ten locations each profile is created and verified on its own, just like the first one. What changes is where you keep it: in a business group, a shared folder in Business Profile Manager where owners and managers work on every profile in the group (Create and manage business groups).

To create one:

1. sign in to Business Profile Manager;
2. if you have two or more profiles, select Create group at the top right;
3. enter a name for the group and select Create;
4. select the profiles to move, then Actions, Transfer businesses, and pick the group.

Two constraints to know first.

Google asks you to keep business groups to one account per business or brand, with separate groups only for different brands or departments. And a deleted group can't be recovered: every profile has to be moved or removed first, and only the group owner can do it.

Verification still happens location by location: video, phone call or postcard, using the method Google offers. Timings and limits for each method are in our guide to Google Business verification. And when a location moves, you don't rebuild the profile, you change the address, as explained in changing your address on Google Business Profile.

So with four locations I can't use the spreadsheet?

Google presents bulk management as the tool for businesses with ten or more locations (Bulk location management overview). With four profiles, a spreadsheet saves you a few minutes at most.

10 or more locations: the spreadsheet and the store code (the column you can't get wrong)

From ten locations upwards, profiles are added and updated with a spreadsheet uploaded in Business Profile Manager (Import and update Business Profiles in bulk). Accepted formats: .xls, .xlsx, .ods or .csv.

Google's sequence is:

1. an account on a company-domain email address (a generic address slows down verification);
2. a business group;
3. a spreadsheet with every location;
4. the upload, then fixing the errors it flags;
5. the bulk verification request.

Profiles don't appear on Search and Maps until they're verified.

The field that decides everything is the store code. These are the spreadsheet rules, as stated in Google's Help Centre on 10 November 2026.

Field	Rule	Source
Store code	required for every location, unique, up to 64 characters, no leading or trailing spaces, no "<", ">" or URLs	Create a bulk upload spreadsheet
Business name	required, up to 100 characters	Create a bulk upload spreadsheet
Primary phone or website	at least one of the two is required	Create a bulk upload spreadsheet
Primary category	required; up to 9 additional categories	Create a bulk upload spreadsheet
Description	optional, up to 750 characters	Create a bulk upload spreadsheet
Additional phones	up to 2	Create a bulk upload spreadsheet
Labels	up to 10 per location, up to 50 characters each	Create a bulk upload spreadsheet
Latitude and longitude	optional, at least 6 decimal places; needed when a new location's address isn't recognised	Create a bulk upload spreadsheet
File format	.xls, .xlsx, .ods or .csv	Import and update Business Profiles in bulk

Why the store code?

Because you can't change a store code through the spreadsheet. It's the key Google uses to recognise each location: to update hours or phone numbers you download the current data, edit it and upload it again with the same codes. Change the code and Google sees a new location. In other words, a duplicate.

Google's own help page flags the silliest trap: spreadsheet software dropping leading zeros. "0004" becomes "4", and location 4 is created all over again. Format the column as text before pasting the codes.

Then bulk verification. The spreadsheet must contain at least 10 profiles of the same business, and duplicate, suspended or deactivated profiles don't count. Agencies managing several businesses in one account and service-area businesses are excluded, and Google may ask for proof of the chain's size or a video (Verify Business Profiles in bulk). The request starts from the Verifications section, choosing Chain; Google doesn't publish response times.

The name: identical at every location (in Milan, two chains out of nine get it right)

Google's guidelines are blunt here: all locations of a business within the same country must use the same name. The exceptions are sub-brands applied to all their locations (Google's example is Walmart Supercenter and Walmart Express) and locations whose signage and website already use a different name. Slogans, store codes, phone numbers and URLs stay out of the name: "The UPS Store - 2872" is not acceptable, "The UPS Store" is.

The same goes for the primary category: locations offering the same service should share it. How to choose it is in Google Business Profile categories.

So what do chains actually do?

In our Milan check, all sorts.

• Tigotà (a drugstore chain): ten profiles, one name. Only Yves Rocher does the same, with "Yves Rocher Italia" on seven profiles.
• Kiko: four spellings across ten profiles (Kiko Milano, KIKO Milano, KIKO, Kiko).
• FitActive (a gym chain): the location in the name on all ten (FitActive Cusago, FitActive Milano Stelvio and so on).
• DentalPro (dental clinics): six profiles out of ten with the location, three with the brand only, one called "Gruppo DentalPro".
• Mail Boxes Etc.: nine profiles out of ten carry "Centro MBE" plus the centre number, for example "Mail Boxes Etc. - Centro MBE 0152". That's the pattern Google uses as its example of what not to do.

Every one of these profiles was live, and 82 out of 86 were claimed: a name that breaks the rule doesn't switch a profile off.

But the name is one of the fields that can trigger a fresh verification when you edit it. Across a network, that means redoing it location by location.

The practical advice: decide the name once, based on the real sign over the door, and put it in the spreadsheet. The location belongs in the address and on the location page, not in the name.

Website and phone: the location page, not the home page (our check of 86 profiles from 9 chains)

The website linked from the profile is where chains differ most. On 10 November 2026 we used DataForSEO (Business Data, Google Maps listings) to read the first ten profiles returned for nine chains within 12 km of central Milan, removing two third-party profiles: 86 profiles in total.

Chain	Profiles read	Links to the location page	Name on the profiles
Kiko	10	10	4 spellings of the brand
Tigotà	10	10	identical
FitActive	10	9	brand + location
DentalPro	10	8	mixed
Yves Rocher	7	7 (store locator with anchor)	identical
Calzedonia	10	7	nearly identical (1 multi-brand outlet)
Mail Boxes Etc.	10	6	brand + centre number
Unieuro	9	3	mixed
Carpisa	10	0	nearly identical
Total	86	60 (70%)

Seven profiles in ten link to the location page. The rest send people to the home page, a generic store list or no website at all.

Does it matter, if the customer finds the shop anyway?

It does, for three reasons you can see in the data.

1. Someone opening the website from the Via Torino profile wants Via Torino's hours and services. On the home page they have to search again. It's the same reason a chain needs one page per shop.
2. The guidelines ask for a contact that reaches the individual location, using a local number rather than a call centre where possible. Three Mail Boxes Etc. profiles (two centres and head office) shared the same number and the same home page.
3. Kiko and Tigotà add a UTM parameter to the link on all ten profiles, with the town and the store number. That keeps each profile's traffic separate from organic traffic in Google Analytics. In total 33 profiles out of 86 carried a UTM; how to read it alongside the profile's own data is in Google Business Profile insights.

The location page can't be invented: it belongs where there's a real location, with its own address, hours and services. City pages without a location are a separate topic, covered in location pages and SEO.

Who owns the profiles: head office (with branch managers as managers)

With several locations the real question is organisational: who owns the profiles?

Our answer is always the same: head office as owner, branch managers as managers. A manager updates hours and photos and replies to reviews; an owner adds and removes users, transfers and deletes profiles. The difference between the roles, step by step, is in how to add a user to Google Business Profile.

Two group rules make the choice almost automatic. A profile can only be transferred to a group you own or manage. And each group has its own owners and managers: a group can't act as manager of another group. If the profiles are scattered across employees' accounts, bring them under a single owner first.

If a registered agency runs the profiles, groups go through the agency's organisation, with roles of their own (Manage agency business groups). Franchise networks add another layer: how to split roles between franchisor and franchisee is in franchise SEO.

Multiple locations and AI answers (AI cites the branch, not the brand)

When someone asks ChatGPT for a gym in Milan, the answer names a specific branch. In our test on local AI visibility FitActive appeared in all three ChatGPT answers, each time as a different branch, and for Milan ChatGPT linked to the branch page, not the home page. AI Overviews, on the other hand, group results by chain and cite the Google profiles of individual branches.

In our Milan check FitActive is also the chain with 9 location pages out of 10. That isn't proof of cause and effect: it's the same logic seen from two sides. One profile per location, with a consistent name, address and page, gives AI a precise entity to cite.

On its AI features and your website page, Google asks for no special optimisation for AI Overviews and AI Mode, but lists keeping Business Profile information up to date among its best practices. The topic itself runs through AI answers too: the UK and US results pages we read for "google business profile multiple locations" both opened with an AI Overview.

Frequently asked questions

In short (and why the store code matters more than the name)

One location, one profile.

2 to 9 locations: individual profiles, one group.

10 or more: spreadsheet, store codes, bulk verification.

Same name everywhere, the location's own phone, a link to the location page.

Head office as owner, branch managers as managers.

The idea to take away is a different one. The store code isn't a spreadsheet detail: it's the only piece of data that stays the same for a location's whole life, while the name, hours and phone number change. Use the same number in the location page URL and the UTM parameter, as Tigotà does with its store number, and every location becomes a readable row in every report. Choose it carefully on day one.

If you'd like to set it up with us, it starts with a review of your profiles as part of a local SEO project.