How to add a manager to your Google Business Profile

If you do not run your Google Business Profile alone, you give others access: an employee who replies to reviews, a business partner, or an agency that keeps your profile up to date. You never need to share your password: every user gets access with their own Google account, and you decide their role.

This guide explains the roles, shows step by step how to add and remove someone, how to give an agency access without handing over ownership, and what to do when nobody owns your profile anymore. If you have no profile yet, start with how to create a Google Business Profile.

Primary owner, owner and manager

A profile can have several owners but always one primary owner. Managers used to be called site managers. You cannot add a Google Group as owner or manager: each person needs their own account.

Adding someone, step by step

1. Go to your Business Profile and choose Menu, then Business Profile settings, then People and access.
2. At the top left, choose Add.
3. Enter the person's email address. It must belong to a Google account.
4. Under Access, choose Owner or Manager.
5. Choose Invite.

The person receives an invitation. Once they accept, you get an email and they are a user straight away. Pending invitations are listed under Pending, where you can also cancel them.

A new owner or manager has to wait seven days before they can delete the profile, remove other owners or managers, or transfer primary ownership. That protects you against someone who gets access and takes everything over at once.

Giving an agency access without giving away ownership

The question that comes back with every project: who becomes the owner when an agency manages or creates your profile? The answer should always be: you. A manager role is enough for an agency to keep your hours, services, photos, posts and reviews up to date and to link Google Ads. An agency has no need to add users or delete your profile.

• Keep the profile on your own accountIf an agency creates a new profile for you, ask for it to be on your Google account, or to make you primary owner straight away.
• Give the manager role,not owner. If you do make the agency an owner, keep primary ownership yourself.
• Put it in your contractWho owns your domain, website, profile and ad account belongs in every agency agreement. What else belongs there is covered on our page about a marketing agency in Antwerp.

Removing a former employee or agency

1. Go to People and access.
2. Select the user you want to remove and choose Remove person.

Only owners can remove others; if you cannot select the user, you are a manager yourself. The removed person gets an email and can no longer change anything. Their earlier review replies and posts stay on the profile. If you want to step down as primary owner, transfer primary ownership to another owner or manager first.

When nobody owns the profile anymore

It happens often: the profile was created years ago by a previous owner, an intern or an agency that no longer exists, and nobody on your team has access. Creating a new profile is the worst fix, because then there are two. Request ownership instead:

1. Go to business.google.com/add and search for your business name and address.
2. You see that someone else manages the profile. Choose Request access and fill in the form.
3. The current owner gets an email and has three days to respond. You follow the status through the confirmation email.
4. If approved, you manage the profile. If denied, you can appeal. If there is no reply after three days, you may get the option to claim and verify the profile yourself.

For a service-area business without a shop or office, the request goes through Google support. How to get through verification afterwards is in why Google Business Profile verification fails; what a profile without an address means, in Google Business Profile without an address.

What a manager does each week

A manager has almost the same access as an owner. In practice the work looks like this:

More than one location

With several locations, each location has its own profile. Owners and managers can create location groups to manage them together, and give access per location: the manager of each shop as manager of their own profile, you as owner of all of them.

Checklist when you start working with an agency

1. Check People and access for who has access today. Former employees, a previous agency or a photographer who once added pictures: remove whoever no longer belongs there.
2. Make sure you are primary owner, with an account tied to the company, not to the personal address of an employee who might leave.
3. Invite the agency as a manager, with the email address of the person doing the work.
4. Agree what the agency may change without asking: hours and photos usually yes, your name and category better not without talking first, since they can trigger a new verification.
5. Agree how you hear what happened: a monthly report of reviews, searches and clicks to your site.
6. Put it in your contract that the agency removes itself, or is removed by you, when the work ends, and that everything it posted stays on your profile.

A second owner as a safety net

If you are the only owner, your profile hangs on one account. Lose access to it and you face the slow road of an ownership request. Add a second owner you trust, such as a partner or a family member in the business, so someone else can take over if you cannot get in.

Mistakes we see

• A shared passwordEveryone logs in with the director's account, and whoever leaves can still get in. Give everyone their own role.
• The agency as primary ownerIf the agency or the cooperation ends, you are left without your own profile.
• A second profile out of frustrationWhoever cannot get access and creates a new profile ends up with two half profiles and a verification that gets stuck.
• Nobody replying to reviewsAccess only helps if someone does the work; getting more Google reviews covers asking and replying.

If your profile does not show in Google afterwards, read why your Google Business Profile is not showing. After a takeover, check your categories again and read local SEO tips for what else counts. If you want someone to manage the profile for you, see local SEO or book a call.