Your salon profile.
The service. The person. The booking.

Start with the real salon business and its existing profile. A chair rental does not automatically establish a separate eligible profile, but distinct eligible businesses can share an address. Investigate the actual business identities before treating records at one address as duplicates.

Google's guidelines define an individual practitioner as a public-facing professional, typically with their own customer base, and name doctors, lawyers and insurance or real estate agents as examples. Whether a stylist qualifies must be assessed against those criteria rather than assumed from the job title: the stylist works in a public-facing role, can be contacted directly at the verified location during stated hours, and has their own client base. Support staff are not individual practitioners. A shared booking desk alone does not settle a public-facing professional's eligibility; confirm how that person can be contacted and assess the full criteria. A stylist renting a chair under their own business name is a separate operating question about who runs what, but the same eligibility criteria still apply before anyone creates a second profile for the same address; neither a chair rental nor an independent-contractor label creates automatic entitlement.

If the individual-practitioner guidance applies, it describes separate organisation and practitioner naming for multiple eligible practitioners, and recommends a shared brand-and-practitioner profile for a sole public-facing practitioner at a branded location. Decide per person from the actual working arrangement rather than creating a profile for every employee.

No practitioner should have multiple profiles for different specialisations. One accurate profile per eligible practitioner per location.

Check the current practitioner guidance before creating any individual profile; eligibility depends on the real working arrangement.

Stated hours should be the salon's real customer-facing hours. If the business operates only by appointment and has no stated open hours, Google's guidance says such businesses should not provide hours; check which situation applies before pasting in a generic week. Use special hours for holidays and closures.

If the profile offers booking, test it end to end: pick a service, choose a practitioner where relevant, confirm the time and complete the flow on a phone. If booking goes to the salon's own site or a partner platform, make sure the profile and website agree on services, prices and availability.

The phone number must reach the salon directly and be under its control; what Google disallows is a number or URL that refers callers to a different business or that business's landing page, so a tracking number the salon controls and that still lands callers with the salon is not such a referral. Call it and check what happens outside stated hours: a voicemail that apologises and a booking link are different experiences for a client trying to book tonight.

Worked example: the profile states open 9–6 weekdays and offers walk-in styling, but the salon now books exclusively by appointment and the front desk only answers 10–4. Either hours describe the real service windows and booking covers the rest, or clients will arrive to a locked door. Decide the accurate representation, then update the linked website to match. This is an illustrative diagnosis, not a claim about this salon.