How duplicate listings happen
Almost nobody creates one deliberately. Listings appear from several directions: a platform generates one from public data, a previous owner or an old agency claimed one, a former employee made one to run ads, a supplier added you to a directory, or someone in the business created a fresh profile because they could not access the existing account. Move premises without updating the original, and you now have two — one at the old address and one at the new.
The platform then has two records for one place, sometimes with different phone numbers, categories and opening hours. Duplicates can sit unverified and quiet for years before anyone notices, which is why they usually surface during an audit rather than through a warning.
Why duplicate listings matter
The damage is mostly dilution. Reviews land on whichever profile the customer found, so instead of one credible record you have two thin ones. Photos, posts and any ranking value split the same way. Search engines faced with contradictory information about a single business tend to trust all of it less, which is the same problem NAP consistency exists to solve.
There is a practical cost too. Customers ring the number on the abandoned profile and reach nobody. Someone turns up at your previous address. The unclaimed listing shows opening hours from three years ago, and nobody in the business can correct it because nobody controls it. Left long enough, duplicates also raise the risk of a listing suspension.
Where clearing duplicates goes wrong
The first mistake is deleting the wrong one. Removing the profile that holds the reviews to keep the one you happen to have access to throws away years of customer feedback, and reviews rarely move on request. Work out which profile carries the reviews and the history before you touch anything.
The second is assuming every similar listing is a duplicate. In some professional categories a listing for an individual practitioner can legitimately exist alongside the practice, and a business with genuinely separate departments or locations may be entitled to more than one profile. Check the category rules before requesting a removal. The third is doing nothing because the second profile is unverified and looks harmless — an unverified profile is still visible to customers.
What to do about it
Audit first. Search your business name, your previous names, your phone number and your address on Maps, and look at the surrounding streets, because a badly placed pin can hide a duplicate a short distance away. Record every profile you find, its address, its phone number and how many reviews it holds.
Decide which profile is the keeper — normally the verified one with the most reviews and the correct address — and correct its details in full. Then claim or report each duplicate through the platform’s own process, marking it as a duplicate rather than deleting it outright, so the platform can merge what it can. Expect it to take time and to need a follow-up. Afterwards, keep a single account with named owners and managers, so nobody has to invent a new profile to get access, and fold the check into your regular local SEO routine.