How to Transfer Ownership of a Google My Business Listing

A client recently needed help transferring ownership of their Google My Business accounts after an employee left. In case you aren’t aware, these listings are viewable within Google Maps, and can appear on the right-hand side of search results, or “Snack Pack” which is locations and a corresponding map showing in search results.

Since there wasn’t a good guide out there and emailed a list of step-by-step instructions on how to do so. Hopefully, this helps you as well so here’s how to transfer ownership of a Google My Business listing.

How to Transfer Ownership of Google My Business Listing

1. Sign in with the Google account which has access to the Google my business pages you need to gain access to
2. Go to https://business.google.com/locations (you should also get a sign-in page here if you weren’t already logged in to a Google account)
3. You’ll see a list of locations which your account has verified, click the one you want to grant someone ownership of
4. Click “Users” in a menu bar on the left hand side.
5. A pop-up will appear saying “Manage Users” click the little person with the + sign beside it top right
6. Enter the Google email address you’d like to grant access to. Please note that this must be an email which already has a Google account associated with it.
7. There will be a drop down below the email you just added for “Choose a role”. Select “Owner” then click invite.
8. The person invited will receive an email with steps (check the spam folder if it doesn’t appear).
9. Repeat the process for each of the Business Listings you’d like to transfer ownership of
10. Once that new person has verified ownership, they can remove the previous user, or modify their access rights by following steps 2-5 above, clicking on the user and editing their role.

Who to Grant Ownership To

The decision to grant someone ownership of your accounts shouldn’t be taken lightly. If you’re in a situation similar to my client, and the only person with ownership leaves the company then it could be trouble if that person wasn’t compliant. Thankfully in this scenario, they were, but Google My Business is a crucial part of managing your online profile these days so only grant access to those you trust, and who will be sticking around.

If you want to give someone access but not “ownership”, then that’s no problem. In step 7 above simply select one of the other two roles available for that specific user. Your options are Owner, Manager, or Communications Manager. You can learn more about the roles and what they can do here.

I hope that helps you solve the problem. Please feel free to leave any questions in the comments below or let me know if it helped!