Duplicate Google listings: how to find and fix them

Duplicates are common and mostly accidental. A previous owner listed the shop. A delivery platform created a record. Somebody in your team made a new profile rather than finding the login for the old one.

Why it costs you

Your reviews split. Forty reviews across two listings looks like two unremarkable businesses instead of one established one.

Customers get the wrong information. They will find whichever listing ranks, and if that is the abandoned one, they get the old number and last year's hours.

Neither listing looks maintained. Photos on one, replies on the other.

Finding them

Search your business name in Google Maps and look past the first result. Then search your address - duplicates often use a slightly different name. Then search your old phone number in quotes.

Also check obvious variants: "Sharma Sweets", "Sharma Sweet House", "Sharma Sweets Pvt Ltd".

Fixing them: merge, do not delete

This is the part people get wrong.

Deleting the duplicate can destroy its reviews. If the duplicate is the older one, it may be carrying years of reviews and history you actually want.

Report it as a duplicate and ask Google to merge instead. Google decides which record survives, and reviews are generally carried across.

Keep the listing with the history, not the one you happen to have the login for. Reviews, age and links are hard to rebuild and a login is a support ticket.

If you cannot get in

Use the "Request access" flow on the listing. It notifies whoever currently manages it - often a former employee or an agency - and if nobody responds within a few days you can usually claim it.

How Sunaam handles this

It flags duplicates and never merges anything on your behalf. Which record survives is a decision with consequences - reviews, age, links - and it is one Google ultimately makes and you should drive.

What it will do is find them, including on directories beyond Google where the same thing happens quietly, and tell you which is which.