The verdict
When several businesses in the same category share an address, Google tends to show one of them in the map pack and filter the rest. In a law firm or a clinic, the listings competing for that one slot are often your own practitioners. Decide which profile should win, give it the firm’s category, and do not create practitioner profiles by default.
A firm with four lawyers creates a Business Profile for the firm and one for each lawyer, because somebody said practitioner profiles are free visibility. Same address, same building, often the same category. Then the firm’s own listing drops out of the map pack for its main search, and nobody can work out why.
Usually nothing is wrong with the firm’s profile. It is being filtered, and the listings filtering it are its own.
What the filter is
When several listings in the same category sit at the same address, Google generally shows one and hides the others for a given search. The local search community gave the changes that shaped this behaviour nicknames. The Wikipedia article on local search optimisation records “Possum”, rolled out on 1 September 2016, as the point where listings with “the same address and same categories” began to be filtered “though they belong to different businesses”, and gives the example: “if several dentists share the same address, Google will only show one of them.”
It records “Hawk”, on 22 August 2017, as narrowing that filter so it seemed to apply only to listings in the same building or very close by. These are community names for observed behaviour, not Google’s own, but the behaviour is easy to see for yourself: search the firm’s main service and watch which of your listings appears.
What Google’s own rules say about practitioners
Google’s guidelines for representing your business name “doctors, dentists, lawyers, financial planners, and insurance or real estate agents” as individual practitioners. A practitioner should only have their own profile if they work in a public-facing role and “can be contacted directly at the verified location during stated hours.” Support staff should not have one.
Where there are several practitioners at one location, the organisation keeps its own separate profile, and each practitioner’s profile carries only their name, not the firm’s. Where a practitioner is the only public-facing one at a branded location, Google recommends a single shared profile in the format “[brand/company]: [practitioner name]”.
Nothing in the guidelines tells you that practitioner profiles help the firm rank. They are permitted, not recommended.
How I decide
- Pick the profile that should win the main search. For most small firms and clinics that is the organisation, because it collects the reviews, the links and the website.
- Give that profile the firm’s main category. If a practitioner profile shares the same primary category at the same address, the two are competing for one slot.
- Only keep practitioner profiles that earn their place. A partner people search for by name, with their own reviews, is worth a profile. An associate added to fill the map is a listing that can only cost the firm.
- Never use practitioner profiles to cover more specialisms. Google says a practitioner “shouldn’t have multiple Business Profiles to cover all of their specializations.”
That first rule is a judgement, and I hold it for small practices. A large firm with well-known named partners may genuinely be better served by their individual profiles. The test is which listing people are actually searching for.
The neighbour version
The same filter applies between unrelated businesses. Two clinics in one medical building, or two firms on one floor, compete for one slot on searches where both are relevant. Distance cannot separate them, so relevance and prominence decide which is shown: the primary category, the reviews, and how clearly the website and the profile describe one business.
That last point is why this sits next to the identity question. One business needs one consistent identity across the site and the profile, set out in why a business needs one identity everywhere Google looks.
The short version
- Same address and same category usually means one listing shown.
- In a firm, your own practitioners can be the competition.
- Google permits practitioner profiles. It does not recommend them. Public-facing, reachable at the location, name only.
- Decide which profile should win the main search. Usually the organisation, for a small practice.
- Keep practitioner profiles that people search for by name.
- Neighbours are filtered the same way. Relevance and prominence decide who is shown.
If a site should be ranking and it isn’t, that’s the work I do. Local SEO covers the profiles, the categories and which listing should be the one people see.
