If there is a doctor who works at two locations, should the doctor be listed on Google Maps twice? Or is that considered a duplicate?
Example: There is a pediatrician’s office that has two locations (whether it’s different parts of town or the next town over doesn’t matter but they’re both under the same company just separate locations). Doctor Sally is shared between both offices. It makes sense for the two pediatrician’s offices to be listed separately on Google Maps. However, should Doctor Sally be listed on Google Maps for each location or just once?
Side note: I recognize that Doctors can manage their own listings through Google My Business but for the sake of simplicity let’s just assume that these are unmanaged locations added by users.
You can check the specific section about Individual Practitioners: "Individual practitioners (e.g. doctors, lawyers, real estate agents)
An individual practitioner is a public-facing professional, typically with their own customer base. Doctors, dentists, lawyers, financial planners, and insurance or real estate agents are all individual practitioners. Business Profiles for practitioners may include title or degree certification (e.g. Dr., MD, JD, Esq., CFA).
An individual practitioner should create their own dedicated Business Profile if:
They operate in a public-facing role. Support staff should not create their own Business Profiles.
They can be contacted directly at the verified location during stated hours.
A practitioner shouldn’t have multiple Business Profiles to cover all of their specializations."
So definitely yes, Your doctor should be listed in Google maps twice if, as I said, the two locations meet the requisite for being listed in Google Maps
@ErmesT Thank you for the reply and link to the Guidelines for representing your business on Google. That is helpful. I know that a practice can have multiple locations and thus multiple listings on Maps but what about the Individual Practitioner? I’m not reading anything in the guidelines that says one way or the other.
I’ll use a fictitious example so as not to throw any real person under the bus. Whitecoat Family Medicine has two locations- one in Chicago, IL and one in Evanston, IL. Both offices have multiple doctors one of which is Derek Shepherd who practices at both offices. Both of the Whitecoat Family Medicine locations are listed on Google Maps. Since Derek Shepherd works in both offices, should he also be listed on Google Maps twice (ie, Derek Shepherd, MD, FACS Chicago, IL and Derek Shepherd, MD, FACS Evanston, IL)? Or should he just have one listing on Maps?
It makes complete sense why both of the buildings would be on Google twice- after all they’ll have different addresses, different phone numbers, different photos, and maybe even different reviews. But Individual Practitioners are the same person whether they are practicing in one location or twenty. I don’t see that if Individual Practitioners are listed on Google Maps multiple times that wouldn’t be very helpful to Map users. If I’m looking for a review of a doctor, I don’t want to look through multiple listings. I’d want to see just the one listing with the aggregate reviews. But what does Google allow?
So we have an individual doctor who operates under the same name but at different locations and in that case multiple practitioner listings would be appropriate! However, the important requirements are that the doctor operates under the same business name and if the service provided at each of location is the same, then the category should also be the same at each of the different locations. It would also make sense that the service hours at each location reflect the actual hours (with no overlap) that the doctor is at each place. The doctor would need to sign up for his/her own dedicated Business Profile and be verified (see Get started with a healthcare provider Business Profile). Alternatively, the doctor could setup the one profile and add different service areas in the service area section of the business profile.
@AdamGT Thanks for that reply. It certainly makes sense. The doctor I was looking at on maps one listing was managed through GMB but the second listing was not. Since it’s the same person but in different locations, it’s too bad that there isn’t a way to link the two listings together so that if you click on one it says something like, “This practitioner is also located at…” and you can click through to the Individual Professionals other map listing(s).
What the doctor can do, @Sleuther , is to add an information in the listing on the “information from the business section” (here below an example), but of course both listing should be claimed (you should inform them about that)
