Moving, Merging, or Closing an Office

The short answer

A move, a merge of two offices, or a closure of one office is the event, and the rest of a dental group of about 3 to 50 or more offices stays open. A move keeps the same office name at a new address: edit that address on the existing Business Profile, verify the business again, and do not create a new profile. A merge keeps the surviving office's profile and marks the other office Permanently closed, which is not a profile merge, because Google's duplicate-profile page says a merge is for two profiles of the same business that should have the same info. A closure marks that one profile Permanently closed and points the office page toward the nearest open offices.

In all three, the office page, the LocalBusiness address, the Google Ads location assets, the call routing, and the directory listings change on the same day as the profile.

This guide is for a marketing lead at a group that is moving the Oak Park office, folding the Pine Hill office into Oak Park, or closing one door while the rest of the group keeps seeing patients. It covers the profile, the page, the ads, and the phone. If every office is shutting down, use how to close a practice's online presence instead. This is marketing and web guidance. It is not legal, lease, or real estate advice. Who may edit a profile is in Google Business Profile governance. The map of the other group jobs is marketing a multi-location practice or DSO.

Move, merge, or close

Pick one row before anyone opens the profile. The sources for each cell are listed later on this guide.

Move

Business Profile. Same office name, new street. Edit the address on the existing profile. Do not create a new profile. After the business is already verified, a move to a new address means you verify again. The address on the profile is public.

Reviews. The move-reviews page says that if you move and keep the same business name, Google transfers reviews automatically. It names hotels, golf courses, and scenic attractions as categories where reviews might not move automatically. Dental offices are not named there.

Office page URL. If the slug is the office name, keep the URL. Change the visible address, the map, the hours, and the LocalBusiness address so they match the new door.

Redirects. If the URL itself changes, use a permanent server-side redirect, HTTP 301 or HTTP 308, to the closest equivalent page.

Ads. Location assets can come from a linked Business Profile account, so the address the ad can show follows that profile. Review campaigns, radius targets, ad text, and final URLs that still name the old street.

Phones. Point the number patients call at the new door. Keep the office slug in the report and remap it. Do not delete the old rows.

Merge two offices

Business Profile. Keep the surviving office's profile. Mark the other office Permanently closed. Do not request a profile merge. That path is for two profiles of the same business that should have the same info.

Reviews. Reviews remain on a permanently closed profile. Customers cannot leave new reviews on it. A Google merge of two profiles of the same business combines reviews, and replies may be lost. Two different offices are not that case.

Office page URL. Retire the page for the office that is going away. The surviving office page stays.

Redirects. Redirect the retired office page to the surviving office page with a permanent server-side redirect, HTTP 301 or HTTP 308.

Ads. The closed office's location asset follows the closed profile once the accounts are linked. Review campaigns and final URLs that still name the closed office.

Phones. Retire or remap the closed office's tracking number. Leave the historical rows in the report.

Close one office

Business Profile. Mark that one profile Permanently closed. It may still appear for people who search for it, and it clearly shows the business is closed. Do not reopen a profile that was marked permanently closed as part of a location or name change.

Reviews. Reviews remain on the profile. Customers cannot leave new reviews on a permanently closed profile.

Office page URL. Tell visitors the office has closed and name the nearest open offices, on a short page that stays up, or retire the URL.

Redirects. If there is no close equivalent page, do not send every closed office to the homepage. A retired URL can return 404 or 410. A redirect, when you use one, goes to the closest open office page.

Ads. Review per-office campaigns, radius targets, ad text, and final URLs that name the closed office. A linked location asset follows the closed profile.

Phones. Stop sending calls to the closed door. Remap the office slug in the report instead of deleting its history.

Move, merge, or close one office in a dental group
Event	Business Profile	Reviews	Office page URL	Redirects	Ads	Phones
Move	Same office name, new street. Edit the address on the existing profile. Do not create a new profile. After the business is already verified, a move to a new address means you verify again. The address on the profile is public.	The move-reviews page says that if you move and keep the same business name, Google transfers reviews automatically. It names hotels, golf courses, and scenic attractions as categories where reviews might not move automatically. Dental offices are not named there.	If the slug is the office name, keep the URL. Change the visible address, the map, the hours, and the LocalBusiness address so they match the new door.	If the URL itself changes, use a permanent server-side redirect, HTTP 301 or HTTP 308, to the closest equivalent page.	Location assets can come from a linked Business Profile account, so the address the ad can show follows that profile. Review campaigns, radius targets, ad text, and final URLs that still name the old street.	Point the number patients call at the new door. Keep the office slug in the report and remap it. Do not delete the old rows.
Merge two offices	Keep the surviving office's profile. Mark the other office Permanently closed. Do not request a profile merge. That path is for two profiles of the same business that should have the same info.	Reviews remain on a permanently closed profile. Customers cannot leave new reviews on it. A Google merge of two profiles of the same business combines reviews, and replies may be lost. Two different offices are not that case.	Retire the page for the office that is going away. The surviving office page stays.	Redirect the retired office page to the surviving office page with a permanent server-side redirect, HTTP 301 or HTTP 308.	The closed office's location asset follows the closed profile once the accounts are linked. Review campaigns and final URLs that still name the closed office.	Retire or remap the closed office's tracking number. Leave the historical rows in the report.
Close one office	Mark that one profile Permanently closed. It may still appear for people who search for it, and it clearly shows the business is closed. Do not reopen a profile that was marked permanently closed as part of a location or name change.	Reviews remain on the profile. Customers cannot leave new reviews on a permanently closed profile.	Tell visitors the office has closed and name the nearest open offices, on a short page that stays up, or retire the URL.	If there is no close equivalent page, do not send every closed office to the homepage. A retired URL can return 404 or 410. A redirect, when you use one, goes to the closest open office page.	Review per-office campaigns, radius targets, ad text, and final URLs that name the closed office. A linked location asset follows the closed profile.	Stop sending calls to the closed door. Remap the office slug in the report instead of deleting its history.

What to do on the Business Profile

Move your reviews across Business Profiles says not to create a new Business Profile because of a change in physical location or ownership. If you unintentionally created and verified a new profile because of a move or an ownership change, that page says to contact Google to transfer reviews from the old profile to the new one. If you move to a new address and keep the same business name, the same page says Google transfers reviews automatically. It names hotels, golf courses, and scenic attractions as categories where reviews might not be moved automatically. A dental office is not on that list.

The same page says reviews remain on a profile that is temporarily closed or permanently closed. Customers can leave new reviews on a temporarily closed profile. They cannot leave new reviews on a permanently closed one. Short closures and special hours are already in holiday and special hours for many offices. Use Temporarily closed only for the case that holiday guide describes.

Edit your Business Profile says that if you move the business to a new address after it is verified, you must verify the business again. That second check is verification after an address change. Manage your business address says the address on the profile is public. It also says changes to the profile usually take about 10 minutes to show up, and in some cases up to 30 days. Those are the only display times this guide uses. They are about the profile edit showing, not about bookings or rankings.

Mark your business as closed is the path for a door that is not coming back. On the profile, open Edit profile, then Hours, then Permanently closed, then Save. The page says a permanently closed profile may still appear on Search and Maps for people who search for it, and that it clearly shows the business is closed. To mark several locations in one pass, sign in to Business Profile Manager, select those locations, open Actions, and choose Mark as permanently closed. A group with 10 or more locations can also add, verify, and manage locations in bulk. The bulk page does not replace the closed status. It is a separate tool, and the business still has to meet Google's quality guidelines to be eligible to appear.

Mark your business as reopened has a limit that matters on a move. If the profile was marked permanently closed as part of a location or name change, do not reopen it. The page says to add a new business, verify that new profile, and contact Google if you want the reviews moved. That sentence is the recovery step after the wrong closure. It is not the first step of a move. The first step is still an address edit on the profile you already have.

Resolve duplicate profiles and ownership issues says you can have only one Business Profile for each business, and that a duplicate does not show on Search or Maps. If the business relocates, do not create a new profile for the new location. Update the existing profile with the new address. A duplicate Business Profile is the second listing. If you remove a duplicate, all of its content and its linked managers are removed, so the sheet should name which profile is the extra one. A merge request is for two or more profiles of the same business on Maps. The page says reviews are combined, replies to reviews may be lost, and the profiles must represent the same business and should have the same info. The Oak Park office and the Pine Hill office do not share that info. Keep one. Mark the other Permanently closed.

Guidelines for representing your business say not to create more than one page for each location, in one account or in several. One office keeps one profile. A move does not add a second page for the new street.

How Google sources business information says profile information is compiled from a variety of sources, including publicly available information such as a business's official website, licensed data from third parties, and facts users contribute. The website and the directory listings have to change on the same day as the profile, or those other sources can still show the old street. Directory work uses building local citations.NAP consistency and a local citation are the matching terms.

The office page and the redirect

Write the URL plan on the change sheet before the profile edit. The worksheet for office paths and redirects is the office URL and redirect planner. What belongs on the page itself is in location pages for a multi-office site.

If the slug is the office name, not the street, a move can keep the same URL. Change the address people can read, the map, the hours, and the markup. Local business structured data says to define each location as a LocalBusiness type and to use the most specific subtype. Address is required. The page calls it the physical location of the business. A dental office page on this site uses Dentist, which is a LocalBusiness subtype. The sample below is text in a code block. It is not markup on this guide. Replace every example value with the address on the change sheet. Do not publish the sample as-is.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Dentist",
  "name": "Example Dental Group Oak Park",
  "url": "https://example.com/locations/oak-park",
  "telephone": "+1-000-000-0000",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "100 Example St",
    "addressLocality": "Example City",
    "addressRegion": "EX",
    "postalCode": "00000",
    "addressCountry": "US"
  }
}

If the URL changes, or a closed or merged office page is retired, use a permanent server-side redirect to the closest equivalent page. Redirects and Google Search says permanent redirects show the new target in search results, and it says to use a permanent server-side redirect whenever possible when the URL shown in search results has to change. It names HTTP 301 and HTTP 308 as the codes that mean a page has permanently moved. It orders redirect methods by how likely Google is to interpret them correctly, and a server-side redirect is the first in that order. The glossary term is 301 redirect.

How to move a site says to keep the redirects for as long as possible, generally at least 1 year. That page is written for a whole-site move, such as a domain change or a path change across the site. This guide uses that line as the floor for an office URL that changed. It does not treat one office redirect as a site move, and it does not claim that rankings move with the URL.

A merged office page redirects to the surviving office page. The Pine Hill URL points at Oak Park. It does not point at the homepage, and it does not point at a page for a different group.

A closed office with no close equivalent is a choice between two honest endings. One is a short page people can read: this office has closed, and here are the nearest open offices. The other is to retire the URL so a request returns 404 or 410. How HTTP status codes affect Google's crawlers says that 4xx status codes, except 429, are treated the same: crawlers tell the next system the content does not exist. For Google Search, the indexing pipeline removes a URL that was previously indexed. Newly encountered 404 pages are not processed. Do not send every closed office to the homepage with a 301. A homepage is a different page from the nearest open office.

Ads and phones

About location assets says location assets can show a store address, a map, or an approximate distance. The page describes linking a Business Profile account, and it says that after the accounts are connected, locations sync to the Google Ads account and can be eligible to show as location assets. An advertiser that owns its stores uses that owned-locations path. The ad location follows the profile edit because the asset is tied to that account.It also does not give a sync time. The only display times on this page are the 10 minutes and the 30 days on the address help page, and those sentences are about the profile, not about ads.

On the same day as the profile edit, review the campaigns that belong to that office. Look at radius targets, ad text, and final URLs that still name the old street or the closed office. A final URL that still opens the Pine Hill page after Pine Hill is marked Permanently closed is part of the change sheet, not a leftover.

Call routing and tracking numbers for the old office change the same day. Who answers, and which number stays on a profile, is in office phones, a central call team, or a hybrid. The report should keep the office slug. The per-office marketing report is where that slug is defined. Retire the slug or point it at the surviving office. Do not delete the history. No call counts, costs, or radii are set on this page.

Order of work

One change sheet per office event, then the edits, then a check. The sheet is the group's file. Google does not publish this form. The fields are:

Office slug, and whether this row is a move, a merge, or a closure.
Old address and new address, or the surviving office when two doors become one.
Profile store code, so the editor opens the right listing.
Page URL, and the redirect target if the URL will not stay.
Ad campaigns that name the office, the phone numbers, the owner, and the date.

Same-day changes, after the sheet is filled: the profile, the office page, the LocalBusiness address, the location assets and the ads that name the old door, the call routing, and the directory listings. Do not leave the page on Friday and the profile on Monday. The address help page is the only place here that gives a display window, about 10 minutes and in some cases up to 30 days, and that window is Google's, for the profile edit showing up.

Follow-up, after the edit: the profile shows the new address, or it shows Permanently closed. If the plan was a redirect, the old URL returns 301 to the target on the sheet. The markup matches the page. Search and Maps do not show a second profile at the new address. If a duplicate is there, remove the extra one only after the sheet says which listing is the duplicate. Removing it also removes that listing's content and its linked managers.

Office move, merge, or close planner

Plan the profile, page, redirect, ads, and phone edits for each office that moves, merges, or closes.

Paste the group's current offices, one per line, and one change per line, each with a date. On a move, edit the existing profile. On a merge, keep the surviving profile. On a closure, mark the profile Permanently closed. Move, merge, or close walks through each case, and The office page and the redirect covers the 301 or 308 redirect to the surviving office page, or a short closed page.

Change ads and phone numbers the same day (Ads and phones), and keep the office slug in the report. Who owns which edit lists the roles on the sheet, and Red flags includes sending every closed office to the homepage. The sample uses made-up offices (oak-park, pine-hill, elm-street) and made-up addresses such as 100 Oak Ave, Example City.

If this browser allows it, a draft is saved on this device after you type. Nothing is sent to a server. Do not paste patient data.

Site address

Optional. The site's homepage, such as https://example.com. If this is blank, a target of / or a bare origin counts as the homepage.

Offices

One office per line, up to 200. Format: office slug | profile store code | office page URL. The store code and the URL are optional.

Office changes

One change per line, up to 200. Format: office slug | event | old address | new address | surviving office | URL plan | redirect target | date. Event is move, merge, or close. New address is for a move. Surviving office is the office slug that stays, for a merge. URL plan is keep, 301, 308, closed-page, 404, or 410. 302 and 307 are accepted so they can be flagged. Redirect target is an absolute http(s) URL or a path starting with /. Date is YYYY-MM-DD.

Summary

Example, not your offices. 3 offices listed. 3 change rows. 1 move. 1 merge. 1 closure. 1 finding. 0 field errors.

Example

The rows below are an example, not your offices. oak-park, pine-hill, and elm-street are placeholder slugs. The addresses, such as 100 Oak Ave, Example City, are placeholders. The site address in the example is https://example.com. What you paste replaces these tables.

Change rows

Example office change sheet. Not your offices. Columns are office, event, Business Profile, office page, redirect, ads and phones, reporting, and note.
Office	Event	Business Profile	Office page	Redirect	Ads and phones	Reporting	Note
oak-park	move	Edit the address on the existing profile. Verify again when Google asks. Do not create a new profile.	Update the visible address, the map, the hours, and the LocalBusiness address.	The URL stays. No redirect.	Location assets can come from a linked Business Profile account, so the address the ad can show follows that profile. Review campaigns, radius targets, ad text, and final URLs that still name the old street. Point the number patients call at the new door.	Keep the office slug. Retire or remap it. Do not delete the history.
pine-hill	merge	Keep oak-park's profile. Mark pine-hill Permanently closed. Do not request a profile merge.	Permanent server-side redirect to the target.	https://example.com/locations/oak-park. Keep it generally at least 1 year.	The closed office's location asset follows the closed profile once the accounts are linked. Review campaigns and final URLs that still name the closed office. Retire or remap the closed office's tracking number.	Keep the office slug. Retire or remap it. Do not delete the history.
elm-street	close	Mark this profile Permanently closed. Do not reopen it later as part of a location or name change.	Permanent server-side redirect to the target.	https://example.com/. Keep it generally at least 1 year.	Review per-office campaigns, radius targets, ad text, and final URLs that name the closed office. A linked location asset follows the closed profile. Stop sending calls to the closed door.	Keep the office slug. Retire or remap it. Do not delete the history.	The redirect target is the homepage. A red flag on this page is: every closed office redirects to the homepage. A homepage is not the closest equivalent page when a nearer office is still open.

Findings

Example findings. Not your offices. Each row names the guide section that explains it.
Input line	What was found	Guide section
Line 3: elm-street \| close \| 9 Elm St, Example City \| \| \| 301 \| https://example.com/ \| 2026-12-20	The redirect target is the homepage. A red flag on this page is: every closed office redirects to the homepage. A homepage is not the closest equivalent page when a nearer office is still open.	Red flags

Same-day

Same-day changes, after the sheet is filled, from Order of work.

The profile
The office page
The LocalBusiness address
The location assets and the ads that name the old door
The call routing
The directory listings

Follow-up

Follow-up, after the edit, from Order of work.

The profile shows the new address, or it shows Permanently closed.
If the plan was a redirect, the old URL returns 301 to the target on the sheet.
The markup matches the page.
Search and Maps do not show a second profile at the new address.

Who acts

Role names already on Who owns which edit. Names only.

Change sheet. Operations lead, Whoever holds the group's Business Profile account, Web team, Paid search owner, Phone vendor or call team, Reporting owner

This CSV is a change sheet export for your own sheet. It is not a Business Profile bulk upload file and not a redirects file.

This is marketing and web guidance. It is not legal, lease, or real estate advice.

Who owns which edit

Accounts stay with the group. A vendor can have a seat. The vendor is not the owner of record.

Who edits the profile, the page, the ads, and the phones when one office changes
Role	What they change	What you can open
Operations lead	The event date, the event type, and the address: old street, new street, or the surviving office.	One change sheet for that office, dated, that the group can open without a vendor.
Whoever holds the group's Business Profile account	The address edit or the Permanently closed mark, then verification when Google asks for it again.	The profile shows the new address, or it shows Permanently closed. The account stays with the group.
Web team	The office page, the visible address and map, the LocalBusiness address, and any permanent redirect.	The live page matches the sheet. A retired URL returns the status the sheet named.
Paid search owner	Location assets, campaigns, radius targets, ad text, and final URLs that name the old address or the closed office.	A list of the campaigns touched, on the group's ad account.
Phone vendor or call team	The number on the profile and the page, and the routing for the old office.	A test call lands at the door the sheet names.
Reporting owner	The office slug mapping. Retire or remap the slug. Keep the history.	The report still has the old rows, labeled so they are not mixed into an open office by accident.

Questions for an agency

Ask these in a proposal or a handoff. They are procurement questions. They are not legal advice, and they do not rank firms.

Questions to ask an agency about moving, merging, or closing one office
Question	A useful answer names	Ask a follow-up if you hear
1. Which event is this, and who writes the change sheet?	Move, merge, or close, named before any edit. One sheet with the office slug, old and new address, profile store code, page URL, redirect target, campaigns, phone numbers, owner, and date.	A plan that starts by creating a profile, or a sheet only the firm can open.
2. For a move, which profile gets the new address?	The existing profile. The address is edited. Verification is requested again because the business was already verified. No second profile is created at the new street.	A new profile at the new address, or a plan to reopen a profile that was closed as part of the move.
3. When two offices become one, which profile stays?	The surviving office's profile stays. The other office is marked Permanently closed. Nobody requests a profile merge for two different offices.	A request to merge the Oak Park profile into the Pine Hill profile, or a new profile for the combined door.
4. What happens to the office URL?	A name-based slug can stay, with the address and markup updated. A changed or retired URL uses a permanent server-side redirect to the closest equivalent page, or a short closed page, or 404 or 410. Closed offices are not all sent to the homepage.	The old page is deleted with no redirect plan, or every closed office 301s to the homepage.
5. What happens to ads and to the phone the same day?	Location assets stay tied to the group's linked Business Profile account. Campaigns, radius targets, ad text, and final URLs that name the old street or the closed office are reviewed that day. Call routing is remapped. The office slug stays in the report.	Ads still land on the closed office, or the reporting history for that slug is deleted.
6. Who keeps the accounts?	The group keeps the Business Profile account, the ad account, the site, and the call numbers. A vendor may have a seat. The vendor is not the only owner.	The firm holds the only login, or the new address is edited from an account the group cannot access.

Red flags

These are checks on a plan. They do not name or rank any firm.

1. A new profile is created at the new address.

The move-reviews page says not to create a new Business Profile because of a change in physical location. The duplicate-profile page says that if the business relocates, update the existing profile with the new address.
2. A profile that was closed as part of a move is reopened.

The reopen page says that if a business was marked permanently closed as part of a location or name change, do not reopen it. Add a new business, verify that profile, and contact Google if you want the reviews moved.
3. Someone requests a profile merge for two different offices.

The duplicate-profile page says a merge is for profiles that represent the same business and should have the same info. Combining the Oak Park office into the Pine Hill office is a closure of one location, not that merge.
4. Every closed office redirects to the homepage.

A permanent redirect is for the closest equivalent page. A homepage is not that page when a nearer office is still open. With no close equivalent, use a short closed page or a 404 or 410.
5. The old page is removed with no redirect plan.

If the URL changes, the redirects page says to use a permanent server-side redirect. The site-moves page, written for a whole-site move, says to keep redirects as long as possible, generally at least 1 year. Dropping the URL with no plan skips that choice.
6. Office markup still shows the old address.

Search Central lists address as a required LocalBusiness property and describes it as the physical location of the business. The visible address and the markup have to be the address on the change sheet.
7. Ads still point at a closed office.

Location assets can show a store address from a linked Business Profile account. Final URLs and ad text that name the closed door keep sending people there after the profile says Permanently closed.
8. The office's reporting history is deleted.

The office slug is how the per-office report joins calls, ads, and pages. Retire or remap the slug. Deleting the rows removes the history the group already paid to collect.

Checklist

Twelve checks before you treat the office event as done. Ticks stay in this browser only.

What DDS Web Solutions builds

DDS Web Solutions builds practice websites. Our team has been building websites since 2014, and we have served 100+ practices. Offices are in Sacramento and San Mateo. The products are Smyly, SmileTrak, and ToothRank. The planning page is DSO and multi-location marketing. A scorecard for hiring a firm is how to choose a DSO dental marketing company.

Sources

Wording on these pages can change, so confirm the live page. This is marketing guidance, not legal advice.

How a dental group moves one office, combines two offices, or closes one door while the rest stay open