Your Google Business Profile is the panel beside the search results when somebody looks you up by name, and the pin that puts you in the map results for “plumber near me”. It is the most valuable free thing a local service business owns on Google, and the one most likely to be half-filled-in, unverified or quietly suspended without the owner noticing.
Four things have changed since the July 2026 version of this page. business.google.com is no longer a dashboard — it redirects to Google’s marketing page, and only business.google.com/add opens the sign-up flow. Verification review takes up to five working days, not the three to seven previously stated here. Questions and answers has gone: the Q&A API was discontinued on 3 November 2025 and there is no Q&A page left in Google’s help centre. And Products is now a retail feature, so the old advice to list your services there with a “from” price no longer fits a trade. Everything below was checked against Google’s own help pages on 15 September 2026.
Where do you actually set up a Google Business Profile now?
In three places, none of them the old dashboard. Google’s “Edit your Business Profile” page now says you edit your profile directly on Search or Maps.
- Creating one — business.google.com/add, then “Add your business to Google”.
- Claiming an existing unverified listing — find it on Google Maps, select “Claim this business”, then “Manage now”.
- Managing it afterwards — sign in to the right Google account and search Google for your business name and town, or just for my business. On a phone, open the Maps app and tap Business at the bottom right.
A fourth is arriving: Google has begun rolling out profile management inside the Gemini web app — updating hours, drafting review replies, pulling performance figures by asking for them. Its help page says the release is gradual and that you must be owner or manager of exactly one verified profile, aged 18 or over, signed in with a personal rather than a work account. If it is not there, you have done nothing wrong.
Have these to hand. The Google account you already use for Gmail, Search Console or Analytics. Your phone number and website address. A smartphone, because video verification can only be recorded and uploaded from a mobile device. Ten or so real photographs. And a written list of the towns you actually cover.
How do I set up a Google Business Profile, step by step?
Four steps, and only the last takes longer than a few minutes. Google’s help says you can add or claim your business at no charge, so nothing here should ask for card details.
1. Check whether Google already has a listing for you
Search Maps for your name and town before creating anything. Google builds unverified listings from public information, and if one exists you claim it rather than add a second: the guidelines say there should only be one profile per business. If someone else has already verified one for your business — an old agency, a former partner — you request ownership instead.
2. Enter the name exactly as it appears in the real world
The most common cause of suspension. Google’s guidelines say the name must be the one you are “consistently represented and recognised” by across signage, stationery and branding, and that including unnecessary information “could result in the suspension of your Business Profile”. The published examples of what is not allowed include marketing taglines, service or product descriptions, location information, phone numbers, web addresses and words in full capitals. If the van says J. Smith Plumbing & Heating, that is the name — not J Smith Plumbing & Heating – Emergency Plumber Southampton.
3. Choose the most specific primary category you can
Your primary category is the strongest single instruction you give Google about which searches you belong in. Google advises choosing the fewest categories that describe your core business, allows up to nine more beyond the primary, and warns against using categories as keywords or picking ones that match neighbouring businesses. If unsure, search what your customers would type and look at the categories the map results use.
4. Then the details, and verification
- Location. If customers come to you, enter the address — Google’s guidelines say a business showing an address should have permanent fixed signage of its name there. If you travel to them, see the next section.
- Contact details. One number you answer, plus up to two more (mobile or landline, not fax), and the full website address including the https, copied from the browser bar. Keep them identical to your other online listings.
- Verification. The part everyone gets stuck on, and it has its own section below.
How do I set up a profile without an address, or add service areas?
You register as a service-area business, remove the address, and list up to 20 areas. Google defines one as a business that visits or delivers to customers directly but does not serve them at its business address — cleaners and plumbers are its own examples — and says that if you do not serve customers at your address you should remove it. The address is still used to verify you and place you roughly; it just is not published, so a home-based business never has to show its home address on Maps.
The published limits are stricter than most people assume:
- Twenty areas maximum, set by city, postcode or other named area.
- No radius. Google says you cannot set a service area as a radius, and if you set one up that way before, you cannot edit it.
- About two hours’ driving. Google says the boundaries of your overall area should not be more than roughly two hours’ driving time from where the business is based.
- One profile for the whole area you serve, not one per town.
- Up to 48 hours for an approved service-area edit to show.
Two exceptions catch people out. Serve customers at your premises and travel to them — a garage with a workshop that also does roadside work — and you are a hybrid business, able to show both, provided the address is staffed during your stated hours. And anything with a minimum age requirement, such as alcohol or weapons, is not permitted as a service-area business without a shop front.
Where you cannot base a profile. Google’s guidelines rule out a virtual office you rent a postal address from but do not work at, a co-working desk without clear signage and your own staff present during opening hours, and any PO box or remote mailbox. Online-only businesses, brands with no in-person contact, lead generation companies and properties for rent or sale are not eligible at all.
How does Google Business Profile verification work in 2026?
Google picks the method, not you, and the review takes up to five working days. The help page says verification methods “are automatically determined by Google and can’t be changed”, and that the options depend on your business type, public information, region and opening hours. Some businesses are asked for more than one.
| Method | What happens | How long | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phone or SMS | A code is called or texted to your business number | Code immediate; review up to 5 working days | An automated answering system will not receive it |
| A code goes to an address linked to the business | Immediate; review up to 5 working days | Only offered to some profiles | |
| Video recording | You record live on your phone and upload | Up to 5 working days to review | The common route for new UK service businesses |
| Live video call | A Google representative joins a call and you show them round | Within your opening hours | Not available to every business |
| Postcard | A five-digit code is posted to your address | Google says most arrive within 14 days | Expires after 30 days; do not request a second |
| Instant | No extra step | Immediate | Can happen if the same account verified your site in Search Console |
Two corrections to advice still circulating. Postcard is no longer the default and is not offered to everyone — Google’s wording is that it “isn’t available for all businesses”. And if you do get one, Google warns you not to change your business name, address or category while you wait, because the code stops working, and not to request a replacement, because that invalidates the first.
The instant route is worth engineering. Verify your website in Google Search Console on the same Google account first and Google says a profile is sometimes verified instantly.
What does Google’s video verification actually require?
An unedited, uninterrupted recording of at least 30 seconds, captured live on a mobile device through your Business Profile. Pre-recorded video is not allowed and you cannot film offline and upload later, and it must not show other people’s faces, private information, or bank, tax or ID numbers. Google wants the same three things proved whatever your business type; only what you point the camera at differs.
If you have premises customers visit
- Where you are — street signs, building numbers, neighbouring businesses or landmarks.
- That the business exists — your shop front or signage, the name on a permanent fixture, matching the profile exactly.
- That you run it — something only staff can reach: the till, the kitchen, the stock room, the point-of-sale system.
If you work from home or from a van
- Where you operate — street signs or landmarks at your address. Google explicitly allows filming signs in your immediate neighbourhood if you run a service-area business from home. Avoid empty land or anywhere with no clear markers.
- That the business exists — tools, specialist machinery, your workspace, business cards or branded workwear.
- That you run it — yourself doing the work, unlocking a branded van, or documents such as a permit, invoice or utility bill in the name on your profile.
Note the difference from the old advice that you must film a shop front with a street number: Google’s service-area requirements never mention one, and it says elsewhere that a business without permanent on-site signage should be listed as service-area in the first place.
What do I do if verification fails or the video is rejected?
Re-record it — Google tells you what was missing. When a video is not accepted a “Review issues” notification appears on the profile, and tapping it lists the reasons; Google’s own examples are the business name not visible on the shop front, no nearby area shown, and missing proof of authorisation to operate the business. Record again including everything from the first attempt plus what was missing; dropping the parts that passed is the common mistake.
If the “Get verified” button simply reappears, Google says verification could not be completed and you should try again, using a different method if more than one is offered. Being asked to re-verify an already-verified profile usually means details were recently changed — and moving to a new address always triggers it.
Why has my Google Business Profile been suspended, and how do I appeal?
A suspension almost always means a guidelines breach, and you appeal through the Google Business Profile appeals tool. The breaches that matter to a small UK service business are a business name padded with services or a town; an address you do not trade from, such as a virtual office, an unstaffed co-working desk or a PO box; a duplicate profile; being ineligible in the first place, as online-only businesses and lead generation companies are; and fake or incentivised reviews, which carry their own penalties.
The appeal has one trap. If you are prompted to add supporting evidence, Google gives you 60 minutes from opening the evidence form to submit it, or it is not attached. Have the documents ready first: business registration, a licence, tax certificates, or utility bills for the business — electricity, phone, water or internet — with the name and address matching the profile. Do not create a new profile for the same business while the appeal is under review. If a reinstatement request is refused, Google may run an additional review with fresh evidence, and says businesses in the European Economic Area may have further redress options.
The 14 things worth filling in, and why each one earns its place
Fourteen fields, against the six the sign-up flow asks for. Google’s ranking guidance is that businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show in local results, and verified profiles get a Profile Strength Indicator that nags you through the gaps.
| Field | Why it earns its place | The limit Google publishes |
|---|---|---|
| Business name | What Google matches against every other mention of you | Real-world name only — no taglines, towns or services |
| Primary category | The strongest signal of which searches you belong in | One, shared by every location of a business |
| Additional categories | Widens the range of searches without diluting the primary | Up to nine more |
| Address or service area | Decides whether you appear in the right places at all | Up to 20 service areas; no radius |
| Opening hours | Used when someone searches at a given time of day | Plus special hours for bank holidays |
| Phone number | Makes the call button work, and calls measurable | Primary plus up to two more; no fax |
| Website | Sends the click to a page you control | Full URL including https |
| Business links | Booking, ordering or appointment links, in some categories | Category-dependent |
| Business description | The “From the business” text, in your words | 750 characters; no URLs or HTML |
| Services | Matches you to specific jobs, not just a trade | No prices or phone numbers in custom service names |
| Photos and logo | Completes the profile and shows the work | JPG or PNG, 10 KB to 5 MB, 250 px minimum |
| Videos | The same job, for people who would rather watch | Up to 30 seconds, 75 MB, 720p or better |
| Opening date | Google may use it to show how many years you have traded | One date |
| Social media links | Joins the profile to the accounts people check before ringing | One per platform, in supported regions |
The description deserves more than a minute. Google says it should cover what you offer, what makes you special and how long you have traded, and should not contain URLs or HTML or dwell on promotions and prices. Write it as you would say it: “We are a family-run bricklaying business covering Southampton, Winchester and the surrounding villages. We do garden walls, repointing, extensions and structural repairs, all with a written guarantee.” That names services and places. “Comprehensive masonry solutions provider” names neither — and it is the sentence an AI assistant has to work with when somebody asks it for a bricklayer.
What most people never touch — and what has actually gone
Services is the most under-used section on the profile. The services editor offers suggestions tailored to your category — Google’s own example for a plumbing business is options like “Install tap” and “Repair toilet” — and lets you add custom services, group them and give each a description and a price. Most profiles list one, or none. Break the work down the way a customer describes it: a cleaner lists domestic cleaning, end-of-tenancy cleans, oven cleaning and weekly cleans separately, not “Cleaning”. Custom service names containing prices, phone numbers or personal information are rejected automatically, so prices go in the details field. The same words belong on your website — see how to write about your services.
Posts come in three types: updates, offers and events. They appear under “Updates” or “Overview” on mobile and “From the owner” on a computer. Google says posts older than six months are archived unless you set a date range, which is the honest argument for posting regularly rather than once, and that posts with a phone number in the description may be rejected. Two or three sentences and a photograph is enough.
Products is the correction to the earlier version of this page. The automatic in-store feed needs a physical shop with a wired barcode scanner or compatible till system and manufacturer barcodes; the manual product editor is for a local shop selling physical goods without barcodes. Neither describes a plumber or a cleaner. For a service business, Services is where your offering belongs.
Questions and answers has been withdrawn. Older guides, this one included until today, told you to post and answer your own common questions. Google discontinued the My Business Q&A API on 3 November 2025, saying it was updating the Q&A functionality, and as of 15 September 2026 there is no help page for the feature anywhere in the Business Profile help centre. Put those questions on your own website, where nobody can retire them.
Two additions are genuinely new. You can link a profile to a GA4 property from the Analytics side — Admin, Product links, Google Business Profile links — putting local discovery data next to website data; see conversion tracking for what to do with it. And the performance report gives you interactions, views, calls, direction requests, website clicks and the search terms people used, though Google notes the search-terms figure updates at the start of each month and can take up to five days to appear.
The review rules: asking only your happy customers breaks Google’s policy
Review gating — filtering customers so only the pleased ones get asked — is explicitly prohibited. Google’s Maps user-contributed content policy lists, among things merchants may not do: “Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers”. The same list bars offering incentives — payment, discounts, free or discounted goods or services — in exchange for a review, a revision, or the removal of a negative one. It goes further than most people realise: merchants should not pressure customers to review while on the premises, should not ask for specific content, and should not instruct staff to collect a set number of reviews or reviews naming a particular member of staff.
The penalties land on your profile, not the reviewer. Where Google finds a fake engagement breach it may stop the profile receiving new reviews for a period, unpublish the existing ones for a period, or display a warning to consumers that fake reviews were removed. Owners are notified by email first.
In the UK this is also the law now. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 came into force on 7 April 2025 and added an explicit ban on posting and commissioning fake reviews to the banned practices list. The Competition and Markets Authority can fine a business up to 10 per cent of its global turnover for breaching consumer protection law, without going to court first.
The compliant method is dull and it works. Take the review link or QR code from the profile, send it the same day to every customer regardless of how the job went, and reply to what comes back. Google’s advice is to value all reviews — a mix of positive and negative feedback often feels more trustworthy — and to keep replies short, personal and signed.
Why is my Google Business Profile not showing up?
Give it up to a month before assuming something is broken. Google says rankings for new businesses can take up to a month to appear, that edits can take up to three days to show, and that approved service area changes can take up to 48 hours. After that, work down this list:
- Is it verified? Only verified businesses can show their information on Maps and Search, and photos appear only after verification.
- Is it suspended? The notification goes to the Google account that manages it — check that inbox, not your usual one.
- Are you searching from the right place? Distance from the searcher is one of the three factors Google names. Searching for yourself from your own kitchen tells you nothing.
- Is it relevance or prominence? A thin profile loses on relevance; a new one loses on prominence. Both are fixable, slowly.
- Is the problem actually the website? Often it is. If you are missing from ordinary results too, start with why isn’t my website showing on Google.
One thing you can rule out immediately: paying for it. Google states there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking, and that it keeps the algorithm confidential deliberately. Anyone selling guaranteed map pack positions is selling something Google says does not exist.
What a Google Business Profile can and cannot do
It can win you the local searches you are near enough to win, and it cannot substitute for a website. A complete, verified profile puts you in Maps and the three-business map pack in your area, hands customers your number, hours, photographs and directions in one tap, and feeds your description and services into the summaries Google’s AI features produce about local businesses.
What it cannot do: rank you somewhere you do not work, because distance is a stated ranking factor and no amount of optimisation moves your van. It cannot carry detail — 750 characters and a services list are not the case for hiring you that a proper service page makes. It cannot be owned outright, because Google can suspend it or withdraw features, as Questions and answers demonstrates. And it is one of several places people check, which is why Bing Webmaster Tools and getting your business into ChatGPT are separate jobs. The profile wins the click; the website has to earn the job.
Common questions
- How much does it cost to set up a Google Business Profile?
- Nothing. Google's own help page on adding or claiming a profile says you can do it at no charge, and there is no paid tier that buys you a better position. Google states plainly that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. If someone rings offering to manage or protect your listing for a monthly fee, that is their service being sold, not a Google charge.
- How long does Google My Business verification take?
- Google says verification review can take up to five working days once you have completed the steps. A phone or SMS code is instant to receive but still goes through that review. A postcard is the slow route: Google says most codes arrive within 14 days and expire after 30. If you verified your website in Search Console on the same Google account, the profile is sometimes verified instantly.
- Can I verify Google My Business without video?
- Sometimes, but you do not get to choose. Google states that verification methods are determined automatically and cannot be changed, and that the options depend on your business type, public information, region and opening hours. Phone, SMS, email, live video call and postcard all still exist, and some businesses are asked for more than one. If only video appears, that is the route you have.
- How do I set up a Google Business Profile without an address?
- You set it up as a service-area business. Google's guidance is that if you do not serve customers at your business address you should remove the address from the profile and enter only your service areas. Your address is still used behind the scenes for verification and to work out roughly where you are, but it is not shown publicly, so a home-based plumber or cleaner never has to publish their home address.
- Why is my Google Business Profile not showing up after verification?
- Usually time, distance or competition rather than a fault. Google says rankings for new businesses can take up to a month to appear, that edits can take up to three days to show, and that service area changes can take up to 48 hours. After that, local results are decided by relevance, distance and prominence, so a profile can be perfectly set up and still sit below better-established competitors.
- Why has my Google Business Profile been suspended?
- Almost always a guidelines breach rather than anything sinister. The common causes are a business name padded with services or a town, an address you do not actually trade from such as a virtual office or unstaffed co-working desk, a duplicate profile for the same business, or a business type Google does not accept at all. You appeal through the Google Business Profile appeals tool, with documents.
- How do I sign in to Google Business Profile?
- There is no separate dashboard to sign in to any more. Sign in to the Google account that owns the profile, then search Google for your business name and town, or for the words my business, and your management controls appear in the results. On a phone, open the Google Maps app and tap Business at the bottom right. business.google.com/add still exists, but only for adding a new profile.
- What happened to Questions and answers on Google Business Profile?
- Google has withdrawn it. The My Business Q&A API was discontinued on 3 November 2025, and as of 15 September 2026 there is no page for the Questions and answers feature anywhere in Google's Business Profile help centre. Older advice telling you to post and answer your own common questions on the profile no longer applies. Put those answers on your own website instead, where you control them.
Related guides
Sources, all checked 15 September 2026. Google Business Profile Help (support.google.com/business, en-GB), the pages “Get started with Google Business Profile”, “Add or claim your Business Profile”, “Verify your business on Google”, “Verify your business with a video recording”, “Manage your service areas for service-area and hybrid businesses”, “Guidelines for representing your business on Google”, “Business eligibility and ownership guidelines”, “Edit your Business Profile”, “Fix suspended or disabled profiles”, “Business Profile restrictions for policy violations”, “Tips to get more reviews”, “Tips to improve your local ranking on Google”, “Find your business on Google”, “Manage your Business Profile photos and videos”, “Create and manage posts on your Business Profile”, “Manage your services on your Business Profile”, “Showcase in-store products on Google Search and Maps”, “About product editor”, “Manage your profile strength”, “Manage your Business Profile on Google with the Gemini web app”, “Connect your Business Profile to Google Analytics” and “Understand your Business Profile performance and insights”. Maps User Contributed Content Policy Help, “Prohibited and restricted content”, for the fake engagement and rating manipulation rules including the quoted line on selectively soliciting positive reviews. GOV.UK, “CMA to boost consumer and business confidence as new consumer protection regime comes into force”, for the DMCC Act coming into force on 7 April 2025, the fake review ban and fines of up to 10 per cent of global turnover. Search Engine Roundtable, October 2025, for Google’s notice that the My Business Q&A API was discontinued on 3 November 2025; the withdrawal of the Q&A feature itself is inferred from the absence of any Q&A page in Google’s help centre on the date checked, as Google has published no announcement we could find. The status of business.google.com and business.google.com/add was checked directly on 15 September 2026. Two figures from the earlier version of this page have been removed because they could not be sourced: the widely quoted claim that profiles with photos receive 42 per cent more direction requests and 35 per cent more website clicks no longer appears anywhere in Google’s help documentation, and we could find no Google statement that profiles with five or more reviews attract noticeably more customers.