Years of five-star reviews feel like the one thing you cannot afford to lose. So when a plumber decides on a new name, a dentist launches a fresh website, or a salon changes hands, the first worry is the same: does the review history vanish? The short version is that your Google reviews live on your Google Business Profile, and they usually stay put through most changes as long as the profile itself survives. The risk is not the rebrand. The risk is deleting, duplicating, or losing control of the profile the reviews are attached to.
This guide walks through the common situations a local business hits when it rebrands, and says plainly what happens to the reviews in each one and what to do.
Reviews Belong to the Profile, Not the Name or the Website
Here is the idea that makes every scenario below easier to reason about. Your Google reviews are tied to your Google Business Profile, which is the listing that shows up in Google Search and on Google Maps. They are not tied to your business name, and they are not tied to your website address. You can edit the name on that profile and the reviews stay attached. You can point the profile at a brand new website and the reviews stay attached. What breaks the link is removing the profile, creating a second competing profile, or having Google merge or suspend the listing. Keep the profile intact and continuous, and the reviews travel with you.
The Scenarios at a Glance
| What you are changing | What happens to the reviews | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Business name only | Reviews stay. They sit on the same profile under the new name. | Edit the name in your profile, wait for Google's review, keep the same address and phone. |
| Website or domain only | Reviews stay. Reviews never lived on your old site. | Update the website field on the profile to the new address. |
| Moving to a new location | Reviews stay if you edit the address on the same profile. | Update the address in place. Do not create a new listing for the new spot. |
| New owner, same business | Reviews stay with the profile. | Transfer ownership of the existing profile. Do not start a fresh one. |
| Two profiles for one business | Reviews can be combined if Google merges the duplicates. | Report the duplicate and request a merge so both sets of reviews land on one listing. |
| Deleting the profile | Reviews are lost when the profile is removed. | Never delete a profile that carries reviews. Edit it instead. |
Name Change Only
Say a salon called "Kim's Cuts" becomes "Studio Kim." You are keeping the same premises, the same phone number, and the same profile. In this case you edit the business name inside your Google Business Profile and submit it. Google reviews the edit before it goes live, which can take anywhere from minutes to a few days. Your existing reviews stay exactly where they are, now displayed under the new name. The one thing to avoid is letting anyone create a second listing for the new name while the old one still exists, because that splits your history across two profiles.
New Website or Domain Only
This one worries people the most and matters the least. Your reviews were never stored on your website. A new domain, a rebuilt site, or a move from one web host to another does nothing to the reviews on your Google profile. All you do is update the website field on the profile so it points at the new address. If you had review widgets or star ratings embedded on the old site, you will rebuild those on the new one, but the underlying reviews on Google are untouched.
Moving to a New Location
A dentist moving three suburbs over keeps the reviews by editing the address on the existing profile rather than opening a new listing. Google treats this as the same business at a new address, and the review history carries across. If the move is far enough that it counts as a genuinely different service area, Google may re-verify the listing, and the profile can drop out of local results for a short while as that settles. The reviews themselves remain attached throughout.
New Owner Keeping the Same Name
When a plumbing business sells and the buyer keeps trading under the same name, the reviews stay with the profile as long as ownership of that profile is transferred rather than restarted. The seller adds the buyer as an owner of the existing Google Business Profile, or transfers primary ownership directly. The buyer inherits the listing and every review on it. The mistake that costs a new owner years of history is creating a brand new profile because they could not get access to the old one. Chase down the login and transfer it before launch.
Two Profiles for the Same Business
Duplicates happen. A business ends up with an old auto-created listing and a newer claimed one, each holding some reviews. Google's own guidance is that a single business should have a single profile, and it offers a way to report duplicates. When Google merges two genuine duplicates, the reviews from both can end up on the surviving listing. This is not instant and it is not guaranteed to combine every review perfectly, so the safer habit is to avoid ever running two listings in the first place.
Deleting the Profile
This is the one action that destroys reviews. If you remove your Google Business Profile, the reviews attached to it go with it, and reinstating the same reviews later is difficult or impossible. During a rebrand there is almost never a reason to delete. Whatever you are changing, name, website, address, or owner, is an edit to the existing profile. Treat deletion as the button you never press while any review history exists.
The Safe Order of Operations for a Rebrand
Confirm you have full owner access to the existing Google Business Profile before you change anything else. Make your edits on that one profile rather than creating anything new. Change one major field at a time where you can, so a name edit and an address edit do not stack into one confusing re-verification. Keep your phone number stable through the transition if possible, since a consistent number helps Google recognize the listing as the same business. Then give Google time to process each edit before assuming something went wrong.