Google Business Profile
The record itself
Google keeps one structured record for each verified business: name, category, address or service area, hours, phone number, website, photos, attributes, and the reviews customers leave on it. Owners edit that record inside Google Search and Google Maps rather than in a separate console, and Google decides how much of it to show in any particular result.
Who it is for
Businesses that meet customers in person qualify, in two shapes. A storefront has an address customers visit during stated hours. A service-area business travels to the customer, hides its street address, and lists the towns it covers instead. Sellers with no in-person contact at all fall outside Google's eligibility guidelines.
What it is not
A Google Business Profile website was never a real website: Google generated a one-page site from profile fields and retired that feature in 2024. The profile is not advertising either, because paid placement is a separate product with its own budget. And it is not the map itself, which is a surface the profile appears on.
Where it appears
Three surfaces carry the same record. On Google Search, a branded query returns the knowledge panel beside the results. In the local pack, three businesses sit above the organic links for a category query. On Google Maps, the profile is the card that opens when somebody taps a pin or a search result.
Where the record comes from
Google does not wait for an owner to turn up. It assembles listings from public data, user submissions and Street View passes, which is why a company so often discovers an entry that already exists, already carries reviews, and already shows an address somebody else typed. Claiming is the act of taking an existing record over.
Who can hold it
Google gives each profile one primary owner, any number of additional owners, and managers. A manager edits almost every field but cannot add or remove other users, and cannot delete the listing. Agencies and marketing teams are added as managers, which is why control changes hands by invitation instead of by shared passwords.
How Google decides to trust it
Verification separates a claimed record from a listing that strangers can only suggest edits to. Google offers each business some subset of video, phone, text, email and postcard verification, and the business does not get to choose freely among them. A profile that breaks the guidelines can be suspended, and a suspended business disappears from Maps.
What it reports back
The record reports what people did after they found it: calls, direction requests, website clicks, messages, bookings, and the search terms that surfaced it. Google keeps that performance history for a limited window only, so a business that never exports it simply loses the older half. None of it identifies an individual customer.
What it connects to
The record never sits alone. Reviews attach to it, and so do customer photos, direct messages, bookings, and anything the owner publishes. A link points outward to the company website. Local Services Ads run beside it for some trades. And the same name, address and phone number appear across directories that Google reads as corroboration of the record.
What keeps changing
Google My Business became Google Business Profile in 2021, and the standalone management app was retired afterwards, moving day-to-day work into Search and Maps. Features arrive and disappear on Google's own schedule. That is why a tutorial written three years ago will confidently describe a button that no longer exists anywhere.
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Everything you can do with your Google Business Profile
Creating your Google Business Profile
claiming the record Google already holds, or adding a business it does not know yet.
Read guideGetting access to your Google Business Profile
ownership transfers, manager invitations, and listings somebody else claimed first.
Read guideUnderstanding your Google Business Profile
the definitions, the differences, and the misconceptions worth clearing up first.
Read guideEditing and removing your Google Business Profile
changing fields, marking a location closed, and deleting a record for good.
Read guidePublishing photos and posts on your Google Business Profile
what the surface accepts, what it rejects, and what customers upload themselves.
Read guideRanking higher with your Google Business Profile
the fields and behaviours that move local placement, and the ones that do nothing.
Read guideFixing your Google Business Profile when it breaks or is suspended
suspensions, duplicates, merged records, and reinstatement.
Read guideWhat your Google Business Profile costs
where money actually enters the picture, and what the things around the listing are priced at.
Read guideChoosing who does your Google Business Profile for you
agencies, software, and what each one is really selling.
Read guideGet Started
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