Tips for Passing Google Business Profile Bulk Verification

What is GBP Bulk Verification?

Bulk Verification is an option that chain, franchise, and multi-location businesses have to more easily manage ten or more business listings on Google Maps and Search. This classification with Google will allow you to easily bulk manage listing edits, as well as add new locations to your verified business group without having to manually verify via video, email, phone etc.

In order for your business to be eligible for Bulk Verification, there are a few prerequisites you should know about before submitting the form.

Find Out if You Are Eligible for Bulk Verification

In order to be eligible for bulk verified status with Google, your business needs to have ten or more brick-and-mortar locations verified on Google. Service area businesses (SABs) do not qualify for Bulk Verification. Listings in the suspended or re-verification status also do not qualify and cannot be in the group when you apply to become bulk verified.

You also need to have all of your locations listed out on your brand website, such as on a location hub page. The number of locations on your website should match the number of listings in your GBP business group for that brand.

Additionally, all your business listings should have signage photos uploaded to the profiles, clearly showing the business name on the signage matches the GBP and the website.

If you are one company operating under multiple names, like with one or more DBAs (doing business as), you may still be eligible for bulk verification. You need to provide evidence that all the brands and locations are owned by the same parent company.

How to Apply for Bulk Verification

First, make sure all your locations are in one business group in your dashboard. If you do not have this set up yet, find out how to create GBP business groups .

Next, ensure a brand domain email is the primary owner of the business group, and that the business group or that brand domain email is also the primary owner of each individual GBP listing.

Once that is done, you can contact support about bulk verification by clicking on the “Verifications” tab in the left column menu of your GBP dashboard. From there, click “Chain” and you should be redirected to a bulk Verification specific form which you need to fully fill out.

This “Verifications” tab will not appear in some agency accounts. If this is the case for you, contact support via the general form and request bulk verification that way.

Ideally, you want to contact Google using the brand domain email that is the primary owner of the group. If you can’t, and you are doing the submission on behalf of the company, Google will need to email the brand domain email to confirm your affiliation with the business.

After Google confirms this affiliation, they may need some additional information from you, or make some requests that you need to complete before they can bulk verify your account.

Tips to Pass the Bulk Verification Process

Sometimes Google support may not understand the bulk verification request, and they will think you are trying to verify 1 listing. If this happens, you just need to explain to the support person (sometimes multiple times) that you want to bulk verify the entire business group. Give them the business group ID and the domain email you are trying to bulk verify. If you explain enough, eventually they will escalate the request to the correct support team.

All the listings in the location group should have a store code added to them, and if they do not, Google will likely ask you to add store codes before they can proceed with the bulk verification process.

Google may ask you for additional proof to verify the real-world existence of these business locations, including:

• Signage photos of specific locations
• Updates to the website to match the business info of the listings in the business group
• Evidence the parent company owns all the brands listed in the business group

Provide all this info to them as quickly as you can to avoid delays.

Once Google confirms they have all the info they need, they will bulk verify the business group, email you to confirm, and you will see a green check mark next to the name in the business group drop down.

It is important to note the domain email that is the primary owner of the business group is the email that is now bulk verified. If you remove that email or make another email the primary owner, you may lose your bulk verification status.

How to Bulk Upload Business Information in GBP

When you are bulk verified, you can use “Bulk Upload” to edit and manage the listings in bulk. You can do this when you are not bulk verified as well, or with a GBP management software that leverages the GBP API.

First, you need to download the bulk spreadsheet for your businesses by going to Add business > Import businesses > Download template

In the template, follow the formatting guidelines here to avoid mistakes with the edits you are making

Do NOT make multiple “big” edits at once and import into the account, such as name, website, phone number, or address. Do one big edit at a time and give it a few days before making another (like with individual listing edits).

Once done, you can import the sheet back into the location group. If you have fields you don’t want data in (ex: you don’t want the phone number to be listed), leave those fields/columns blank .