Should Every GMB Page Have it's own email address?

[aj613]

Just spent 2.5 hours on the phone with Google.  I created dozens of GMB pages for clients using my email address.  Now I am discovering that this is not the right way of doing this.  Each business owner should create a GMB account with her own email address.  Then I can be added as a manager of that GMB account.

Question:
Now that I have dozens of GMB accounts under my email account, is it worth it to create a new email address for each client and associate it with the new email address?

I think the best thing would be to have each client do it herself, but I'm not sure it's worth the headache of walking each one through it.  What do you think?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Adam,

Good for you for learning something new and trying to act on it. Yes, it's critical that each business directly controls its GMB listings. The key reason for this is that client/agency relationships end, and it places a big burden on the client if the agency is the one who "owns" the GMB listings. It's just not in the client's best interest. There has also been a theory over the years that GMB listings created under the company's email extension (vs. a third party extension) are more trusted by Google, but it has been quite some time since I heard anyone mention this nuance.

At any rate, yes, you want to get ownership transferred from your agency to the client, to protect them, and also to protect your business from the headache of having to do this later when clients move on.

Here's Google's guide to transferring ownership: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3415281?hl=en

[Ben_Fisher]

Miriam is dead on, I would like to add one other thing to consider. You can still be an owner, transfer primary ownership to the actual owner and that will leave you as an owner.

Another consideration, if for any reason your account was to become compromised (flagged as spammy for instance) then all your GMB listings would become suspended since you are the primary owner of all the listings. In the case of a soft suspension, you would have to reverify all your listings.