You have spent four years collecting reviews. Two hundred of them, most of them good, built one customer at a time. Now the lease is up and you are moving three miles across town, and the thought that keeps surfacing between packing boxes is whether all of that follows you or whether you are about to start again from zero. It is a reasonable worry, because reviews are one of the few assets a local business builds slowly and cannot buy. The good news is that they usually travel with you. The bad news is that one very common mistake strands them on a listing nobody will ever see again, and plenty of owners make it without realizing there was a choice.

Reviews are the part of your listing that took longest to build and would be hardest to replace. Coverage of BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey, run with 1,002 US consumers, reports that 47 percent of people avoid businesses with fewer than 20 reviews, making volume a credibility threshold rather than a vanity metric. Which is exactly why what happens to that history during a move is worth getting right before you touch anything.

The rule in the simple case

If you move to a new address and keep the same business name, your reviews generally transfer automatically. You update the address on your existing profile, Google processes the change, and your review history comes along. There is no separate step, no support request, and nothing you need to negotiate.

That covers most moves. A shop relocating within the same town, a clinic moving to a larger unit, an office changing buildings. The same applies to changes in ownership where the name stays the same, and to minor name changes such as adjusting punctuation or dropping a redundant word. In all of these Google treats the listing as the same business in a new place. Certain categories behave differently, with hotels, golf courses, and scenic attractions being the usual exceptions, because those listings are tied to the place itself rather than to the operator. For most small businesses the straightforward rule applies.

The mistake that strands your reviews

Here is what goes wrong. An owner about to move reasons that the old listing is now inaccurate, marks it permanently closed, and creates a clean new profile for the new address. It feels tidy and responsible. It is the single most expensive thing you can do in this situation.

The new profile starts empty. The old one keeps your two hundred and sits there marked closed. They are not gone, and Google's guidance is to contact support to have reviews transferred if a duplicate profile has been created by mistake, but that is a request rather than an automatic process and it takes time you did not need to spend. Optuno sees this often enough that it is worth stating plainly: for an ordinary move, do not close the old listing and do not create a new one. Edit the address on the profile you already have. Google's own review-transfer guidance says not to create a new profile simply because you have moved. The listing you have been building is the asset, and the address is just a field on it.

Doing the move properly

Update the address on your existing profile rather than creating anything new. Expect the change to take longer than an ordinary edit, because address changes are among the most scrutinized fields on a profile and frequently trigger re-verification. That is normal rather than a sign of trouble.

Timing helps. Change the address once you are operating from the new location, not weeks before while you are still trading at the old one, because verification may ask you to demonstrate that you are there. Update your website and any other listings first so that the supporting evidence lines up when Google looks. And do not make several other changes in the same week, since a profile altering its address, name, and category together attracts far more scrutiny than one changing a single field. If you have not made an address change before, changing your business address on Google covers the mechanics step by step.

When a move really does create a new business

There is a version where a fresh profile is correct, and knowing the difference matters. If you move and change your name at the same time, in a way that makes it a different business rather than the same one relocated, Google may treat it as new. Rebranding entirely while moving falls into this category.

There is also a documentation wrinkle worth knowing. Google's review-transfer page says not to create a new profile merely for a physical move, while its reopening guidance says that if a profile has already been marked permanently closed as part of a move, you should add and verify a new profile and contact support to move the reviews. Which applies depends on whether the old listing has already been closed. In a genuine rebrand a new profile is appropriate, and you can ask support to move eligible reviews across. Move first, let the address settle, then change the name a few months later as its own event. Two clean single changes are far safer than one combined change that Google reads as a different business appearing at a different address. If a name change is part of your plan, changing your business name on Google without getting suspended is worth reading before you do both at once.

What happens to your rankings

Reviews transferring is not the same as rankings transferring, and this is where owners get an unpleasant surprise. Your reviews follow you, but proximity does not. Your visibility is anchored to your address, so moving relocates the center of your coverage to the new pin.

If you moved across town, expect to lose ground in the neighborhoods around the old address and gain it around the new one. That shift is not a penalty and there is nothing to fix. It is the local algorithm doing exactly what it does. Plan for it rather than panicking about it: if the old area still matters commercially, the work is building relevance for it through your website rather than expecting the profile to cover ground it no longer sits in. For a picture of where you stand before and after the move, Optuno's free local SEO report gives you a snapshot of your rankings, listings, and reviews.

Everything else that needs updating

The profile is one entry in a longer list. Your website, your other directory listings, your social profiles, and any citation sources all carry your old address, and inconsistency between them slows verification and muddies the signals Google uses to judge where you are.

Work through them deliberately rather than all at once. Website first, since Google checks it against your profile. Then the major directories where customers are most likely to find you, then anything smaller as you get to it. Set a reminder to check again a month later, because old addresses have a way of resurfacing through data aggregators that have not caught up with the change yet. That second pass catches most of what the first one missed. Getting this right is unglamorous and it prevents a long tail of problems, and NAP consistency explains why matching details in matching formats does more work than it appears to.

Frequently asked questions

Do my Google reviews transfer when I move?
Usually yes. If you keep the same business name and update the address on your existing profile, reviews generally move with you automatically.

What if I close the old listing and start a new one?
Your reviews stay attached to the old profile rather than disappearing, but they do not follow you automatically. You would need to ask Google support to transfer them, which is a request rather than a guarantee. Editing the existing profile avoids the whole situation.

Will moving trigger verification again?
Often, yes. Address changes are heavily scrutinized, so expect a re-verification request and allow extra time for the change to publish.

Do my rankings move with me?
Your visibility re-centers on the new address, so you gain ground near the new location and lose it near the old one. That is the proximity factor working normally rather than a penalty.

What if I am moving and rebranding at the same time?
Google may treat that as a new business, and reviews might not carry over. Where possible, move first, let it settle, then change the name separately a few months later.

How long before everything looks right?
The profile change can take days to a few weeks including verification. Rankings settle over a month or two, and stray old addresses on directories can surface for longer.

Moving a business without losing the visibility and reputation you built takes sequencing and follow-through across a lot of small updates. If you would rather hand that off, Optuno's local SEO plans cover listings management through a relocation, with no long-term contracts, no setup fees, and a dedicated contact.