Update Your Google Business Profile and Listings After a Domain Move

You moved to a better domain. The redirects work. Your email still comes through. Nice. But there's one more job that people forget, and it quietly sends customers to your old name for months: your listings.

Your website address isn't just on your website. It's on your Google Business Profile. It's on Yelp and your Facebook page. It's on the invoice template, the truck, the door. When you switch domains, every one of those still points to the old name until you change it by hand.

This post walks through how to update your Google Business Profile after changing domain, then the other listings worth cleaning up. It takes an afternoon, not a week.

Why this matters more than it looks

Here's the thing about a domain move. A 301 redirect sends someone from your old address to your new one automatically. So even if your Google Business Profile still shows the old domain, a visitor who clicks it usually lands in the right place. For now.

The problem is later. Redirects don't last forever, especially if you ever let the old domain lapse. And Google reads your Business Profile as a signal about who you are. If your profile says one domain and your actual site is on another, you're sending mixed signals to the one place most local customers find you.

Fix the listing, and you stop relying on the redirect to save you.

Update your Google Business Profile

This is the big one. For most local businesses, the Google Business Profile drives more clicks and calls than the website itself. Here's the order I'd do it in.

Change the website link

1. Sign in to the Google account that manages your business.
2. Search your business name on Google, or open the profile from Google Maps.
3. Find the Edit profile option, then look for Contact or Website.
4. Replace the old address with your new domain. Save.

Google's own steps live here if you get stuck: the Google Business Profile help page. The layout changes now and then, so trust their instructions over any screenshot.

Check every link, not just the main one

Your profile can hold more than one link. Restaurants have menu links. Service businesses often have an appointment or booking link. Some have a "quote" or "order" button. Each of those can still point at the old domain. Click every one and confirm it lands on the new site.

Fix your posts and photos captions

If you use Google posts for offers or updates, older ones may link to the old domain. You don't have to delete them, but any live offer should point to the right place.

Then hit the other listings

Google is first, but it isn't the only place your address shows up. Work down this list. Most take two minutes each once you're logged in.

• Yelp — update the website field on your business page.
• Facebook and Instagram — the "About" section and the link in your bio.
• Bing Places — smaller, but free and easy.
• Apple Maps (Apple Business Connect) — matters for anyone with an iPhone.
• Your industry directories — Angi, Houzz, Healthgrades, Avvo, the local chamber, whatever fits your trade.
• Nextdoor, if you have a business page there.

Don't try to remember them all from memory. Search your business name on Google and see what comes up on the first two pages. That's the list of places customers actually find you. Update those first, then worry about the rest.

Don't forget the stuff that isn't a listing

The web listings get the attention. These get missed:

• Your email signature and everyone else's on the team.
• Invoices, quotes, and receipts — the template, not just the next one you send.
• Business cards and printed flyers — order the new batch now so you're not handing out the old name for another year.
• Vehicle wraps and signage — expensive to redo, so plan it, but at least stop reprinting the old one.
• Your voicemail and any place a phone system reads out a web address.

Tell Google you moved, too

Updating your Business Profile handles the customer-facing side. There's a separate step on the search side: telling Google Search that your whole site changed addresses. Those are two different tools, and doing one doesn't do the other.

If you haven't set up the technical side yet, start with how to set up 301 redirects from your old domain to your new one, then walk through Search Console's Change of Address tool. And if you're wondering how long the dust takes to settle in search results, we cover that in how long until Google recovers after you change domains.

A quick word on timing

Do the listing updates after your new site is live and your redirects are working, not before. If you change the Google link on a Tuesday but the new site doesn't go live until Friday, you've got three days of broken links. Line them up. If you're still in the planning stage, our pre-move checklist puts these steps in the right order.

None of this is hard. It's just a list, and lists get forgotten in the shuffle of a move. Set aside an hour, pull up your Google Business Profile first, and work down.

Still deciding whether a better name is even worth the move? Browse names for your city and trade, or send us one domain you're weighing and we'll give you a straight answer.