Google Business Claimed But Can’t Access
Did a former employee verify your Google My Business listing and you don’t know what email address they used?
This is a common problem. Many businesses have a Google My Business listing that’s already been verified by either an employee, an agency or by the owner themselves (but they just forgot which email address they used). Now that employee or agency is gone, and the business owner doesn’t know how to get access to their GMB listing.
Since the Google My Business listing is “owned” by the person who verified the listing, it’s important for the owner to get back control of their listing.
The first thing you want to do is to confirm that the business is listed on Google My Business:
- Go to Google My Business
- Sign in with the Google account you think may have been used to claim/login to your business listing
- Search for the business name and address
- If the business appears in the search results, click on the listing
- If you see a dialog that says that someone else has verified the business, select one of these options:
Try a different email address
If you’re like most people, you probably have more than one email address. You might have verified your business using one of your other email addresses. Try signing out and then sign back in with one of your other Google accounts.
You will see any listings that have been verified with this Google account. If you still don’t see the business listing in any of the owner’s Google accounts, then you will need to contact the current listing owner.
Request access from the current listing owner
Google allows you to contact the current listing owner directly through Google My Business so you can request access to own or manage the business listing.
To request access from the current listing owner:
- Go to Google My Business
- Sign in with the Google account you want to use to manage the business
- Enter the name or address of the business and select it from the search results
(Note: You might see a dialog that shows part of the email address that was used to verify the listing. The business owner might recognize that email address snippet. If the owner recognizes the email address, sign into that account to access the business listing.)
- Fill out the form with your contact information. The current listing owner might need to contact you, so you need to share your contact details with them.
- Click Submit
- The current listing owner will get an email asking them to reach out to you and you’ll receive a confirmation email. Click on the link in the email to check the status of your request
- Allow 7 days for the current listing owner to respond to your request. If you don’t hear back from them after 7 days, you can then go in and verify your affiliation with the business to get access to the business listing.