Who should own your Google Business Profile, and how to keep control

What an unclaimed Google listing means for your business

Your Google listing is the panel customers see when they search your business name or find you on Google Maps. It shows your hours, your phone number and your reviews. Google puts it together from several sources: your own website, data it licenses from other companies, and what people add, such as addresses, photos and reviews. Google’s help webpage on those sources says customers “might get information you haven’t added”. So a business can have a listing that nobody at the business ever set up.

The 2026 edition of the Bahamas Digital Readiness Index read the Google listings of the Bahamian businesses it scored. A claimed listing is one whose owner has proved to Google that they run the business, so they control what it says. Of the 1,571 listings whose claim status the index could check, 590 had not been claimed. For the owner of one of those businesses, three things follow.

• Nobody at the business can manage it. Anyone can suggest an edit, but only an owner or a manager can reply to reviews or change the hours and phone number directly.
• Nobody gets Google’s notice about a suggested change. When someone suggests a change that needs review, Google may notify the listing’s owner, who has four days to accept or reject it. An unclaimed listing has no owner to notify.
• Someone else can claim it first. Google’s help webpage on protecting a listing warns that unclaimed listings are “more vulnerable and prone to hijacks”. Getting a listing back from someone else takes the ownership request described later in this guide.

Unclaimed listings sat mostly with businesses still building their presence online. The index places each business at a stage. Doors Opening means at least one door is open, but not yet every door its trade expects. Expected Doors Open means every expected door is open, but not all four, and All Doors Open means all Four Digital Doors are open. The further along a business was, the more often its listing was claimed. The index shows the two go together. It does not show that one causes the other. For a business still opening its doors, the Google claim is the step most often left undone, so check it first.

For a claimed listing, the index can see that it is claimed, but not whose Google account claimed it. A claimed listing is only as safe as that account. If it belongs to a former receptionist, a nephew or the web designer who built your site, the business depends on that person to change its own listing.

Which Google account should own your Google Business Profile

The Google account that claims a listing becomes its owner. Choose that account first, before you claim the listing or ask for it back.

Pick an account the business keeps and that you check yourself. That can be a Gmail address made for the business, or a Google account set up on the business’s own email address. Avoid a staff member’s personal Gmail. A Jamaican web agency puts it plainly in its setup guide: “If they leave, your business goes with them.”

Google’s own rules are on your side. Google says only business owners, or people they authorise, may manage a listing. Its examples of those helpers include an agency and “a friend of the business owner”. Google tells them to let the owner own the listing and to take manager access themselves. They must “always transfer Business Profile ownership to the business owner immediately upon request”.

Sign in to the owner account now and then. Google says it may take ownership away from an account that has not signed in recently.

To check your own listing, search your business name on Google. If the listing shows “Own this business?” or “Claim this business”, tap it. If the next screen says “Manage this business to reply to reviews, update info and more”, nobody has claimed it yet. Claim it from the account you picked. The claim steps are on the Google Business Profile door webpage, linked at the end of this guide.

If the next screen says “Someone else may manage this Business Profile”, the listing is already claimed. If you cannot sign in to it with an account you hold, ask the person who set it up to add you, or request ownership from Google.

Choose the account before you claim, because that account becomes the owner.

Google Business Profile owner vs manager: who gets which role

A listing has two roles, owner and manager. Each person uses their own Google account, so nobody has to share a password. Google’s help webpage says each user “needs their own Google Account”.

A manager cannot add or remove people or delete the listing, so a manager cannot lock you out. A manager can still change your phone number and hours, and can mark the business closed. Choose managers with care, and remove each one the day they stop helping.

Here is how to set the roles.

• The business is the primary owner. A listing can have several owners, but only one primary owner.
• Everyone who helps is a manager. That includes staff, family and any agency.
• At most one second owner, and only someone who is part of the business, such as a co-owner or partner. This is our advice. Google does not require it. Google says to add owners “with extra care”, because an owner can transfer the listing. One trusted second owner means a single lost login does not lock the business out.

You add people and change their roles under People and access in the listing’s settings. Google’s help webpage on owners and managers has the current steps.

How to transfer ownership when staff leave, an agency ends or you sell

A listing is most at risk when someone leaves or the business changes hands. Each of these moments has one step that keeps the listing with the business.

• A staff member leaves. Remove their access on their last day. Google advises removing former employees. Their past review replies and posts stay on the listing.
• An agency or web designer stops working with you. Ask in writing for ownership back, and quote Google’s rule above. Keep them as a manager only if they still help you.
• You sell the business. Add the buyer as an owner, then make them the primary owner before the sale closes. Google says this keeps the listing’s information, like its reviews.
• Allow a week. A newly added owner or manager waits seven days before they can remove other people or transfer primary ownership. Add the new person at least a week before the old one leaves.

If a former employee or an agency owns your Google listing

When someone else holds the listing and will not hand it over, you can ask Google for ownership. Google emails the current owner, who has three days to respond. If they do not answer, you may get the option to claim the listing, though Google says that option “isn’t always available”. If they refuse, Google says you can appeal the decision, and you can still suggest edits to the listing. Some guides online say the owner has seven days. Google’s own webpage says three.

The same three days matter when you are the owner. If someone asks for ownership of your listing and nobody answers the email, that person may be able to claim it. So check the inbox of the owner account, and answer every request.

Google’s two September 2026 updates: suggested edits and Collected info

Anyone can suggest a change to a Google listing, including a customer, a neighbour or a competitor. Google published two things in September 2026 that affect how an owner keeps up.

Suggested edits: four days to answer. When a suggested edit needs your review, Google may send an email or a notice in your dashboard. From then, you have four days to accept or reject it. If you do not respond, Google may publish the change “if it is supported by other publicly available information, such as your business website”. Google also says it may apply some edits “without prior review”. In the listing’s editor, information that Google changed shows in blue.

Because Google may check a suggested edit against your website, keep your website’s hours and phone number right. When your business phone number is different on Google and Facebook shows how to make every door match.

Collected info: what Google heard on your phone. Google may call, text or WhatsApp the verified phone number on a listing to check details such as your hours. The answers from whoever picks up can update the listing. Google marks those updates “Pending” and says its review may take up to five business days. In September 2026 Google made a Collected info tab live, under Edit profile, that lists what it gathered, with a source and a date for each item.

Google says the Collected info tab is available in “select regions, languages, and business categories”, and its fraud-calls help webpage says the WhatsApp and text messages go to businesses in “certain countries”. As of 25 September 2026, we found no source that says either reaches The Bahamas. If your dashboard shows the tab, read it. If it does not, there is nothing to check there for now.

If you do have the tab, two things help. Deleting a line removes it from Google’s records, but it does not change what your listing already shows, so correct the field itself as well. Also tell whoever answers the business phone or WhatsApp that their answers may end up on the listing. If you would rather Google did not call, you can say so on the call, or switch the calls off under Advanced settings.

How to spot a fake Google call or WhatsApp message

Google keeps a help webpage on fake calls and messages that use its name. Here is what it says to look for.

• A real Google call tells you it is from Google and why it is calling.
• A real WhatsApp message comes from a verified account named “Google Maps”, or “Google Maps” followed by a country name, with a blue checkmark.
• Google never asks for a one-time code or a PIN. It never asks you to pay to keep your listing, or to have it verified or reinstated.
• Google warns that fake callers may say they work “with Google”. Hang up on them.

Never approve an owner or manager request from someone you do not know, and turn on 2-Step Verification for the owner account. That adds a second check at sign-in, such as a code on your phone, so a password alone does not open the account.

How to keep control of your Google Business Profile

A short check every few days keeps the listing in the business’s hands.

• Open your listing every few days. Look for notices and for any information shown in blue.
• Answer each suggested edit within four days.
• If you have a Collected info tab, read it, and correct any field that is wrong.
• Once a month, open People and access. Remove anyone who no longer helps you.
• Keep 2-Step Verification on for the owner account, and sign in regularly.
• Watch the owner account’s inbox for ownership requests, and answer them.