Google Business Profile · Google’s own rules, quoted
What Google says matters on your Business Profile.
Your Google Business Profile is the listing that shows your business in Google’s local results, on Maps and Search: name, hours, phone, reviews, directions. Google publishes rules for it, and a short explanation of how local results are chosen. Here is what those pages say, in Google’s words, and what they leave out.
Google’s words, quoted and datedWhat you can and can’t influenceNo promises about the map
Who can have a profile
Customers come to you.
Google’s list includes “Your full address, if your business has a location that customers can visit.”1 Businesses that show one “should maintain permanent fixed signage of their business name at the address.”2
You go to your customers.
That is a service-area business. “If you’re a service-area business, you should hide your business address from customers.” Google’s own example is a plumber working from home: “clear the address from your Business Profile.” You set a service area instead, which “shouldn’t extend farther than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based”, although “For some businesses, larger service areas may be appropriate.”2
You rent a mailing address you don’t work from.
“If your business rents a physical mailing address but doesn’t operate out of that location, also known as a virtual office, that location isn’t eligible for a Business Profile.” Nor are “P.O. boxes or mailboxes located at remote locations”. A co-working space has its own conditions: “clear signage, receives customers at the location during business hours, and is staffed during business hours by your business staff”. And a service-area business can’t list a virtual office “unless that office is staffed during business hours”.2 Our own rule is simpler: never an address you don’t genuinely occupy and staff.
If you never meet customers in person, at your premises or theirs, check Google’s guidelines before creating a profile. We don’t have one: we work remotely.
How Google says local results are chosen
Google’s local ranking page says: “Local results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity.” Its headings call the third one Prominence.1
Relevance: you can influence this.
“Relevance is how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for.” Google’s advice is to “provide complete and detailed business info.”1 That means every field, filled in accurately.
Distance: you can’t.
“Distance refers to how far each business is from the customer who’s searching.”1 In our reading, it often explains why a business across town shows first for people near it. Faking a nearer address breaks the rules above.
Prominence: you can influence this, honestly.
“Prominence means how well-known a business is.” It is “also based on info like how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have.” And: “More reviews and positive ratings can help your business’s local ranking.”1 Google gives no number.
What Google doesn’t publish
How the three are weighted. Google says it tries to “keep the search algorithm details confidential”.1
A review count, star average or pace to aim for. Its local ranking page, its reviews help page and its Maps content policy give none.
That profile posts affect ranking. Posts are not on Google’s list of ways to improve local ranking.1
A way to pay. “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.”1
So nobody can promise you a place in the map results: not an agency, not a tool, and not us.
The details Google asks for
First, verify: “This tells Google that you’re authorized to represent the business, so it’s more likely to show up in search results.” Then, be complete: “Businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results.”1
Name: the one on your sign.
It should “reflect your business’s real-world name”, as used on your storefront, website and stationery. The guidelines list what doesn’t belong in it, including taglines, phone numbers, web addresses, service or product information, and location details.2
Categories: what you are.
“Use as few categories as possible to describe your overall core business from the provided list.” “Do not use categories solely as keywords or to describe attributes of your business.” The test is whether a category completes “This business IS a” rather than “this business HAS a”.2
Hours, including special hours.
Google lists “Your business hours, including special store hours.”1
Phone: a number you control.
“The phone number must be under the direct control of the business.”2 A tracking number set up by a previous agency may not be.
“You can show customers what you offer and tell the story of your business with photos and videos.”1
Reviews: what Google allows, and what it bans
Google’s starting point: “Reviews and other user contributions to Google Maps must reflect a genuine experience.”3
Asking: allowed.
Businesses may “Solicit or encourage the posting of content that does represent a genuine experience”, with no incentive and no steering of the rating or the words.4 Google suggests a link or a QR code, and notes: “Customers must be signed into a Google Account to leave a review.”3
Replying: encouraged.
“As best practice, reply to reviews and share your perspective.” Google adds: “Negative reviews aren’t necessarily a sign of poor business practices.”3 It says replies can help your business “stand out”; it doesn’t say they change where you rank.1
What Google bans
Rewards. Offering free or discounted goods or services in exchange for a review, or for changing one or removing a negative one, “is considered fake & misleading content and is strictly prohibited.”3
Asking only happy customers. Businesses may not “Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers”.4
Quotas and scripts. Examples include “Merchants requesting that staff solicit a certain number of reviews”, and businesses should not “request that specific content be included”.4
Reviews from people with a stake. “Content that is based on a conflict of interest” is prohibited, and a conflict may include employment, “a contractual or consultory relationship” or “familial relationships”. That covers staff, family, and any agency you pay, us included.4
Sudden bursts. The policy names “unusual volumes or patterns of review contributions” that point to rating manipulation.4
Incentivized or biased reviews “are not allowed and will be removed from Maps.”4 Our rule: one neutral request to every customer after the job, no reward, no filter, and a reply to every review, negative ones first.
This covers Google’s policies, not US law on reviews, which is a question for a lawyer.
What doesn’t work, or breaks the rules
You may be offered these as shortcuts. Each runs into a written rule.
Adding a service or a town to your business name.
“Including unnecessary information in your business name isn’t permitted, and could result in the suspension of your Business Profile.”2 The service belongs in your categories, services and description; the town in your service area.
A virtual office, or an address where you don’t work.
Not eligible, as above; a service area covers the towns you drive to.2
Hundreds of directory listings.
Google’s spam policies name “Low-quality directory or bookmark site links” as link spam.6 In our view, a listing customers actually use, like your chamber of commerce, is different.
Google documents an appeal process for suspended profiles and gives no timeline for a decision. One instruction while you wait: “Do not create a new Business Profile for the same business while your appeal is under review.”5 In our view, no shortcut is worth risking the listing your customers use to find and call you.
Your profile and your website are different things
The way we explain it: the profile mostly drives the map results; your website drives the ordinary web results. They meet in places: your profile name should be the one you use on your website,2 prominence counts links from other websites,1 and the profile links to your site.
Business markup on your website doesn’t create a profile.
Structured data is code on a web page that labels facts like your name and hours for search engines. Google’s LocalBusiness type can support “Business details displayed in the Google knowledge panel”, the information box sometimes shown about a business.7 But “Using structured data enables a feature to be present, it does not guarantee that it will be present.”8 In our reading, markup describes your website; a profile is created and verified separately, in Google Business Profile.
Don’t give yourself stars.
Where a business “controls the reviews about itself”, its pages using business markup “are ineligible for star review feature”, and Google’s example includes an embedded “Google Business reviews or Facebook reviews widget”. And: “Don’t include fake or undisclosed incentivized reviews on your page or in your structured data markup.”9
Measuring it: the Performance panel
Your profile has its own numbers. “Performance data is available only for verified Business Profiles.”10 The numbers include:
Views
People who viewed your profile on Search and Maps, counted as unique visitors: “A person can only be counted once a day.”10
Searches
The terms people searched to find you, “updated at the start of each month”. “You can’t directly manage these queries.”10
Calls, Directions and Website clicks
Clicks on your call button, requests for directions, and clicks through to your website.10
Two cautions: “Only metrics that apply to your business appear.” And if you run Google Ads, “Performance data includes views, searches, and actions from both organic search results and Google Ads.”10
Our view: calls, directions and website clicks are the closest Google comes to reporting a customer getting in touch. Views and website visits are counted differently.
A short checklist
Verified, and you know who else can edit it.
Your real-world name, with nothing added.
Address shown only if customers visit and it’s signed; otherwise an honest service area.
The fewest categories, each one something the business is.
Hours current, special hours included.
A phone number you control.
One profile for the business.
One review request for every customer: no reward, no filter, no script.
A reply to every review, negative ones first.
The same name, address and phone on your website; no star markup of your own reviews.
Calls, directions and website clicks, checked monthly.
How we check this in an audit
Our audit checks your profile field by field against these rules and against your website. A person re-checks every finding, and each one quotes its rule. We change nothing during an audit and never ask for your password. The sample audit, for a fictional plumbing business, shows how we write up a profile name with a service and a city added.
Google’s Business Profile help pages carry no last-updated date, so we re-read them on a schedule rather than waiting for a date to change. We quote rather than paraphrase so you can check us: every quotation above links to the page it came from.