Research

What Google actually says about Business Profile — not what everyone repeats

Every one of these 14 rows is a sentence pulled from a Google Business Profile Help Centre page, with the link and the date it was checked. If a number is not on Google's own page, it is not in this table — it is in the section below, with the pages that were checked and came back empty.

Collected and checked by Anton Khripko Last verified September 9, 2026 CC BY 4.0 — reuse it with a link

Last verified September 9, 2026 14 rows · 11 sources · 4 claims dropped

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Google Business Profile rules, quoted from Google
Metric	Value	Period	Source
Can a service-area business hide its street address? If you work out of a home office or a van and customers never come to you, hide the address and let the service-area list do the job instead of listing a fake storefront. This applies only to businesses that never see customers at that address. A storefront or office people walk into still has to show its real address. Verbatim from the source You should only choose to not show your address if your business is a service-area business. ... If you hide your business address, your Business Profile will only show your service area. Checked 2026-09-09	Allowed for service-area businessespolicy	current policy, accessed 2026-09-09	Google Business Profile Help, "Manage your business address"
Maximum number of service areas on one profile Don't list every town you could theoretically reach. Pick the 20 areas that actually produce jobs — that's the hard cap Google enforces, not a soft guideline. Areas are entered as cities, ZIP or postal codes, or named regions — not as a radius you draw on a map. Verbatim from the source You can have up to 20 service areas. Checked 2026-09-09	20service areas	current policy, accessed 2026-09-09	Google Business Profile Help, "Manage your service areas for service-area & hybrid businesses"
Does Google offer a mile/km radius setting for service areas? Stop asking a vendor to "set the radius to 30 miles" — that setting doesn't exist. Build the list from named cities and ZIPs that together stay within roughly a 2-hour drive of your base. Google's own interface only takes place names, cities, or postal codes — there is no field for a mile radius. The 2-hour driving-time figure is guidance on total sprawl, not a setting Google measures against. Verbatim from the source The boundaries of your overall area shouldn't be more than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based. Checked 2026-09-09	No radius option; named areas only	current policy, accessed 2026-09-09	Google Business Profile Help, "Manage your service areas for service-area & hybrid businesses"
Google's definition of "relevance" as a ranking factor Fill in every category and attribute Google offers that actually fits your business. Relevance is scored off your profile data, not off guesswork. Google names complete, accurate business information — categories, attributes, description — as what feeds this factor. Verbatim from the source Relevance is how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for. Checked 2026-09-09	How well a profile matches the search	current policy, accessed 2026-09-09	Google Business Profile Help, "Improve your local ranking on Google"
Google's definition of "distance" as a ranking factor You can't out-optimize physical distance for a given searcher. That's exactly why the accuracy of your service-area list matters. For a service-area business with no public address, Google still computes this from the searcher's location and the business's declared service areas. Verbatim from the source Distance refers to how far each business is from the customer who's searching. Checked 2026-09-09	Distance from the searcher	current policy, accessed 2026-09-09	Google Business Profile Help, "Improve your local ranking on Google"
Google's definition of "prominence" as a ranking factor Reviews and being mentioned or linked elsewhere online both feed prominence directly, by Google's own account. Of the three ranking factors, this is the one an owner can actually move over time. Google names inbound links, press coverage, and directory listings, plus the number and quality of reviews, as inputs here. Verbatim from the source Prominence means how well-known a business is. Prominent places are more likely to show up in search results. Checked 2026-09-09	How well-known the business is	current policy, accessed 2026-09-09	Google Business Profile Help, "Improve your local ranking on Google"
What's allowed in the business name field, and the stated penalty for abusing it Stuffing your city or service into the name field ("Acme Plumbing Charlotte NC") is exactly the "unnecessary information" Google says can get a profile suspended. Use your real registered name only. Google gives its own before/after example — "TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank" has to become just "TD Bank" — so the rule targets keyword- and tagline-stuffed names specifically. Verbatim from the source Include only your business's actual name... Don't add a marketing taglines, store codes, special characters, hours or closed/open status, phone numbers, or URLs. ... Including unnecessary information in your business name isn't permitted, and could result in the suspension of your Business Profile. Checked 2026-09-09	Real-world name only; violations can cause suspension	current policy, accessed 2026-09-09	Google Business Profile Help, "Guidelines for representing your business on Google"
Verification methods offered, and what breaks a pending code Don't touch your name, address, or category while a verification code is pending. Finish verifying first, then edit — otherwise you restart the whole process. Google separately notes that a reappearing "Get verified" status, or a request for more information, is usually triggered by a recent edit to business details. Verbatim from the source Do not edit your business name, address, or category on your Business Profile. If you do, the code we sent you won't work. Checked 2026-09-09	Phone/text, email, video call, mail (~14 days), or instant; editing name/address/category can break an in-progress code	current policy, accessed 2026-09-09	Google Business Profile Help, "Verify your business on Google"
Are paid reviews and "review gating" both prohibited? A "happy customers click here, unhappy ones email us" filter is review gating, and it's a named policy violation, not a grey area. Google does allow asking customers for reviews broadly. The policy targets incentives, and routing only happy customers to the public review link through a pre-filter survey. Verbatim from the source Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers... Reviews or ratings that have been paid for, directly or in kind. Checked 2026-09-09	Both prohibited	current policy, accessed 2026-09-09	Google Business Profile Help, "Prohibited & restricted content"
Can an owner delete a published review, or only flag it? A harsh but honest negative review will not come down no matter how many times you flag it. The two real levers are a public reply, and a policy-violation flag if it's genuinely fake or abusive. There is no owner-facing delete button. Removal only happens if Google's review of a flagged item finds an actual policy violation — fake, spam, off-topic, hate speech — and a denied flag can be appealed once. Verbatim from the source You can report any review, but only those that violate Google policies are eligible for removal. ... Do not report a review just because you disagree with it or dislike it. Checked 2026-09-09	Cannot delete directly; can only flag for policy review	current policy, accessed 2026-09-09	Google Business Profile Help, "Read and reply to reviews"
How long a standard Post stays visible without a set date range A plain update post isn't a one-and-done poster in your window. It quietly vanishes after 6 months unless you give it an explicit end date, so treat posting as a recurring task, not a single setup step. This is separate from Offer or Event posts, which Google unpublishes at their own set end date rather than the 6-month default. Verbatim from the source Posts older than 6 months are archived unless a date range is set. Checked 2026-09-09	6 monthsmonths	current policy, accessed 2026-09-09	Google Business Profile Help, "Create and manage posts on your Business Profile"
Google's technical specs for photos and videos A phone photo under 250px on a side, or a video over 30 seconds or 75MB, will simply fail to upload. Check these numbers before blaming the upload tool. The recommended (not minimum) photo resolution is 720x720 px. Uploaded media can take 24-48 hours to appear on the live profile. Verbatim from the source Format: JPG or PNG. Size: Between 10 KB and 5 MB. Minimum resolution: 250 px tall, 250 px wide. ... Duration: Up to 30 seconds long. File size: Up to 75 MB. Resolution: 720p or higher. Checked 2026-09-09	Photos: JPG/PNG, 10 KB–5 MB, min 250×250 px; Videos: up to 30 sec, up to 75 MB, 720p+mixed (KB/MB, px, seconds)	current policy, accessed 2026-09-09	Google Business Profile Help, "Manage your Business Profile photos & videos"
How many profiles one business location may have, and what happens to a duplicate If you rebrand or move, update or remove the old profile yourself instead of creating a fresh one. A leftover duplicate goes invisible in Search and Maps rather than sitting there harmlessly. Google names the same address and overlapping services, not just an identical name, as duplicate signals — so a second profile at the same address for a related but distinct business can still get flagged. Verbatim from the source You can have only one Business Profile for each business. ... Multiple profiles for the same business may mislead your customers and are against our policies. If a profile is considered a duplicate, it won't show on Google Search or Maps. Checked 2026-09-09	One profile per business; duplicates are suppressed from Search and Maps	current policy, accessed 2026-09-09	Google Business Profile Help, "Resolve duplicate profiles & ownership issues"
What "Permanently closed" does, and how to reverse it If Google marks you permanently closed by mistake, the fix is a documented self-serve edit through Hours, not a support ticket. Try that first before escalating. The closed label can be set by the owner or applied by Google itself from third-party signals, which is exactly the scenario that needs the owner-initiated reopen flow. Verbatim from the source Your Business Profile displays as 'Temporarily closed' or 'Permanently closed' on Google Maps and Search. ... If you reopen a closed business or if any of your businesses are mistakenly marked permanently closed, you can reopen the location. Checked 2026-09-09	Displays as closed on Maps/Search; owner can edit Hours to reopen it	current policy, accessed 2026-09-09	Google Business Profile Help, "Mark your business as closed"

Showing 14 of 14 rows

What did not survive checking

These are claims we went looking for and could not confirm at the source. They are not in the table — and they are listed here so you do not spend time on them either.

Google Business Profile allows a maximum of 10 categories total (1 primary + 9 additional).: Both of Google's own consumer Help Centre pages on categories were checked directly (answer/7249669 and answer/3038177). Neither states a numeric cap — the only guidance is qualitative: pick a primary category and "use as few categories as possible." The "10 categories" figure is repeated across SEO blogs and third-party API docs, but it was not found on a page Google itself publishes, so it is not presented here as an official rule.
Business Profile Posts have a fixed character limit — commonly cited as roughly 1,500 characters for updates and roughly 4,000 for offers.: Both official Posts pages were checked (answer/7662907 "About posts" and answer/7342169 "Create and manage posts"). Both describe post types, rejection reasons (phone numbers, offensive content, malware links), and the 6-month archive rule — neither publishes a character count anywhere on the page. The specific numbers only appear in third-party guides, so this row was dropped rather than presented as Google's own limit.
Q&A questions and answers are capped at 10,000 characters each.: Google's own help pages and community threads on Q&A were searched for an official character limit; none was found. The 10,000-character figure only appears in third-party "character limit" round-up articles, never on a page Google itself published, so it was dropped.
Service areas can be set as a mile or km radius around the business's base location.: Google's own service-area help page (answer/9157481) gives a roughly 2-hour driving-time guideline for total sprawl, but the actual feature only accepts cities, postal codes, or named regions — there is no radius input in the product and no radius unit anywhere in the documentation. The true rule (named areas, ~2-hour guidance) is published above as its own row; this claim is listed here because the "set my radius to X miles" framing many owners and even some agencies use does not match how the feature works.

Methodology

Every row was pulled directly from Google's own Business Profile Help Centre (support.google.com/business) by opening the page and reading the sentence the number or rule actually appears in — no SEO blog, forum post, or third-party API doc was used as the source of a quote or figure. Pages covered: business address and service-area management, local ranking factors, business-name guidelines, verification, prohibited and restricted content (reviews), reading and replying to reviews, posts, photos and videos, duplicate-profile resolution, and marking a business closed.

Four widely repeated numeric "rules" — a category cap, character limits on posts and Q&A, and a radius-based service area — were checked against these same official pages and, finding no textual support for a specific number, moved to the dropped section with the exact pages checked. That section names where each belief likely comes from: third-party SEO guides and API documentation that state a number Google itself has never published.

No two official Google pages were found stating conflicting figures on the same fact, so the disagreements section is empty for this dataset.

Sources

How to cite this page

Husky Digital. Google Business Profile rules, quoted from Google. Last verified September 9, 2026. https://husky-digital.com/research/google-business-profile-rules/

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What Google actually says about Business Profile — not what everyone repeats

What did not survive checking

Methodology

Sources

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