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To claim a Google Business Profile, find your existing listing on Google Search or Maps, select “Claim this business” or “Own this business?”, sign in with the Google account you want to manage it from, and complete Google’s verification to prove the business is yours. Claiming is what you do when Google has already made a listing for your business, which it often has. It is free, and once the listing is verified you control everything on it.
A Google Business Profile is the free listing Google shows for your business in Search and Maps. Claiming and creating get confused a lot, so it helps to be clear on the difference before you start.
Claiming vs creating: which one are you doing?
The two words describe two different starting points, and knowing which you are in saves a mess later.
You create a profile when no listing for your business exists anywhere yet. You claim one when a listing already exists, built either by Google automatically or by someone else, and you take ownership of it. Google generates basic listings for a lot of businesses from public information, so a surprising number of owners who think they need to create one actually need to claim one.
Getting this right saves a headache. If a listing already exists and you create a second one instead of claiming the first, you make a duplicate, and duplicates cause ranking problems and usually end up removed. So the first move is always to look.
Step 1: find your listing
Search your business name in Google Maps, or search it directly on Google.
If your business appears with its own panel or map pin, a listing exists and you claim it. Look for a “Claim this business” or “Own this business?” link on the listing. If you search and nothing comes up at all, there is likely no listing yet, and you create one from scratch instead.
Step 2: request ownership
Select “Claim this business” and sign in with the Google account you want to own the listing from.
Use a dedicated business Google account here, not a personal Gmail you share with staff, and not one tied to a former employee or an old agency. Whoever holds this account controls the listing, so it is worth starting with the right one. Google will then ask you to confirm a few details about the business and move you on to verification.
Step 3: verify that the business is yours
Google will not hand over control until it confirms you are the real owner.
It does this through a video, a phone call, a text, an email or a mailed postcard, and the options you get depend on your business type. A postcard can take up to a couple of weeks, so start this step as soon as you can. Verification is the safeguard that stops a stranger claiming your listing, and it is the point where the listing becomes yours to edit. Until it clears, your changes will not show publicly.
What if someone has already claimed your listing?
This is the situation that catches owners out, and it has a fix.
When you try to claim a listing that someone else already manages, Google tells you the business has already been claimed and shows a partly hidden version of the email address that holds it. Look closely at that masked address. It is often an old staff member, a previous owner, or a marketing agency you worked with once and forgot about.
If you recognise it, the quickest path is to ask that person to add you as an owner from inside the profile, or to transfer ownership to you. No verification battle, just a request to someone who already has the keys.
If you do not recognise it, or the person is long gone, Google has a “Request access” process. You submit a request, Google emails the current owner, and they have a set window to respond. If they do not reply within that window, you can ask Google to grant you ownership instead, which usually means completing verification to prove the business is actually yours.
How long does claiming take?
The claim itself takes a few minutes. Verification is what sets the timeline.
Video, phone and text verification can be near instant. A postcard adds a week or two of waiting for it to arrive before you enter the code. If you are wrestling a request-access process with an unresponsive current owner, add the response window Google gives them on top. For most owners claiming a simple listing, it is done inside a fortnight.
After you claim it, the real work starts
Claiming only gives you the keys. An owned but neglected listing does not rank any better than an unclaimed one.
Once the profile is yours, go through it properly: confirm the primary category is the service you most want calls for, fix the hours including public holidays, add real photos, list your services, and start gathering recent reviews. Then keep it active. Claiming is the gate you have to get through; the ranking comes from what you do after it.
If you would rather skip the guesswork and have someone get your profile working properly, that is exactly what we do. Get in touch with Pear Tree Media, tell us about your business, and we will audit your listing, tell you straight where it stands, and get the phone ringing.
