Leaving your salon in Perth: can you take your Google reviews with you?

Abby's take

What this means for the industry — and for independents

Industry impact. Local reviews are commercial assets because they influence trust, map visibility and booking decisions. Confusing a stylist’s personal reputation with ownership of a salon profile can create profile disputes, misleading information and a damaged launch at the exact moment an independent business needs clarity.

For freelancers. A hairdresser planning to leave employment needs to know which reputation assets are portable. Their portfolio, permitted testimonials and future client experience may support the new business, while reviews attached to the employer’s salon profile generally remain with that profile.

What I'd do next

• Identify the legal and trading business represented by the existing Google Business Profile before changing an address, name, ownership role or category.
• Save permitted evidence of your own work and public mentions, but do not export salon client data or present employer-owned reviews as reviews of a new business.
• If the same independent business is relocating, update the existing verified profile instead of creating a second profile and follow Google’s relocation process.
• If the new venture is genuinely a new business, create its own accurate profile and ask clients for reviews only after they have received a service from that business.

Watch-out. Google decides profile eligibility and whether reviews can move. Employment agreements, client data, testimonial permissions and business ownership can also affect what a stylist may use. Check the actual facts and obtain advice where ownership is disputed.

First decide whose business the profile represents

The decisive question is not whose name appears most often in the review text. It is which real-world business the Google Business Profile represents. A salon profile normally represents the salon, even when a review praises one employee or renter.

If you are leaving an employer to create a new independent business, the salon’s profile does not become your profile. A screenshot saying a client loved your colour work can support a private record of reputation, but it is not a transferable Google review for the new business.

Separate client relationships from business ownership

Employee leaving versus independent business relocating

Google’s official guidance says a relocated business that keeps the same business name will generally have its reviews transferred automatically. It also tells businesses not to create a new profile merely because the physical location changes.

That rule applies to the same business moving. It does not mean an employee can take reviews from an employer’s salon profile and attach them to a newly created freelance business. A new owner of the same continuing business is another scenario again: Google provides a primary-ownership transfer process so the business information and reviews remain together.

Use this three-scenario test before making changes

Scenario one: you worked for a salon and the salon owns the profile. Leave it alone and build a separate profile for the new business. Scenario two: you already operated your own verified business and are only moving its address. Update the existing profile rather than creating a duplicate.

Scenario three: the business itself is being sold or transferred while continuing under the same identity. The current primary owner should use Google’s ownership-transfer process. Do not solve an ownership problem by opening a duplicate profile; Google specifically warns against doing that for a location or ownership change.

What you can carry into the new launch

You can carry your skill, portfolio material you are authorised to use, qualifications, personal professional contacts, your own domain and social audience, and testimonials obtained with permission in a form that accurately explains where and when the work occurred.

Do not copy review text into a new Google profile, create reviews on behalf of clients or ask someone to review a business they have not used. Keep portfolio claims factual and distinguish past work from bookings delivered by the new business.

Keep portfolio work and consent honest · Test whether client demand is truly portable

Build the new review base without a risky shortcut

Set up the new profile with the correct business name, service model, contact details, booking link and location or service area. Make it possible for a client to recognise the business they actually booked before asking for a review.

After a completed appointment, send the same simple review request to suitable clients without scripting praise or making a reward conditional on a positive rating. The first ten genuine reviews of the new business are more commercially useful than a disputed attempt to inherit history that belongs elsewhere.

Set up the independent profile correctly · Create a consistent review request

Protect the transition before announcing it

Before publishing the move, check the employment or contractor agreement, client-data access, business-name ownership and any profile roles you still hold. Do not remove the salon’s owners, change its address to yours or mark it closed because your working relationship has ended.

Prepare the new booking path, profile and permitted client communication together. A clean transition gives people one accurate destination and reduces the temptation to make rushed profile changes after leaving.

Plan a controlled move into independence

Common questions