Chapter 1: What a Google Business Profile Actually Is

1.1 Google Search and Google Maps

When we talk about Google Business Profiles, we are really talking about a business's presence across two of Google's most important services for local customers: Google Search and Google Maps.

Google says an eligible business can use a Business Profile to manage how it appears on Maps and Search at no charge.[1]

That sounds straightforward, but the distinction between Search and Maps is worth understanding because customers can encounter the same business in different ways.

Google Search begins with a search.

Someone might already know the business and search for it by name. Or they might only know what they need: a plumber, an Italian restaurant, a dentist, a solicitor or a locksmith.

When Google identifies local intent, it can show nearby businesses it considers relevant. Google gives the example of somebody searching for an Italian restaurant on their phone and seeing local results in Search and Maps.[2]

That means a potential customer does not need to know a business exists before Google introduces it.

If someone searches for a business by name, the discovery happened somewhere else.

If they search for the type of product or service they need and find the business in Google's local results, Google has become part of the discovery process.

Google Maps adds a geographical view of the same problem. Customers can search for a particular business, but they can also search for a type of business and explore the results around a place.

A local business exists somewhere, and the customer is searching from, or searching around, somewhere.

That geography will become important when we look at local visibility later in the book.

For now, the practical point is that a Business Profile can represent different kinds of eligible businesses in different ways. A storefront business may show the physical address customers can visit. A service-area business that travels to customers may hide its address and show the area it serves instead. Google says the location information available through a Business Profile can include a street address, service area or place marker, depending on the business.[1][3]

The profile then helps the customer understand what they have found.

Depending on the business and the features available, it can show opening hours, telephone number, website and location information, alongside photographs, videos and customer reviews.[1]

So Search and Maps are not simply displaying a business name.

They can help answer some of the questions a potential customer has before deciding what to do next:

• Is this the type of business I need?
• Where is it?
• Does it serve my area?
• Is it open?
• How do I contact it?
• What does it look like?
• What do previous customers say about it?
• Where can I find out more?

For some customers, Search will be the first encounter.

For others, it will be Maps.

Many will move between the two while deciding which business to contact or visit.

One verified Business Profile can be managed through Google Search and Google Maps, although Google notes that some management options can vary by platform and device.[4]

That gives us the first foundation for everything that follows.

A Google Business Profile is a collection of business information that Google can surface across Search and Maps when people are looking for that business or for the type of business they need.

Before we start thinking about improving that information, however, we need to know that we are working with the correct profile and that the correct people control it.

1.2 Existing, Claimed and Verified Profiles

A business can appear on Google before the owner has ever managed its Business Profile.

Finding the business on Google tells us that the profile exists. The next job is to establish who controls it.

Google says Business Profile information can be compiled from publicly available information, licensed third-party data, user contributions and information based on Google's own interactions with businesses and places.[5]

So when an owner decides to start managing the business on Google, start with this question:

"Does the correct Business Profile already exist?"

Before creating anything new, search for the business.

Search for the name.

Look on Google Maps.

If it has a public customer-facing address, check the location.

If the correct profile already exists, the job is usually to claim or gain access to that profile rather than create another version of the same business.

Google's guidelines generally allow one Business Profile for each business, apart from specific exceptions such as certain departments and individual practitioners.[3]

An existing profile can broadly leave us in one of three situations.

It may exist without having been verified by the business.

It may already be verified and controlled by somebody connected with the business.

Or it may be controlled by an account the current owner or manager cannot access or does not recognise.

If the business is eligible and the profile has not already been verified, an authorised person can begin the claiming and verification process. If somebody else already controls the verified profile, Google provides an ownership-request process.[6][7]

There are several ordinary reasons for this.

A former employee may have created the profile.

A previous marketing company may have managed it.

Another director may control it through a different Google Account.

The person who originally set it up may simply have forgotten which account was used.

First establish whether the existing profile represents the same real-world business. If it does, use Google's ownership and access processes to resolve the problem rather than creating another version of the same business.

Verification is how Google confirms that the person trying to manage the profile is authorised to represent the business. Google says verification is required to edit business information and interact with customers, and that the verification methods available to a business are determined automatically.[8]

Depending on the business, Google may offer methods such as video recording, phone or text, email, live video call or mail. In some cases, more than one method may be required.[8]

Verification gives the authorised business the ability to manage the information Google shows. From there, the profile still needs ongoing management as customers contribute photographs and reviews, Google receives information from other sources and the business itself changes.

Verification gives us control over the parts Google allows us to manage.

Management is what happens afterwards.

Before we optimise anything, we therefore want to know three things:

• this is the correct profile;
• the correct business controls it;
• the people managing it are authorised to do so.

Once that foundation is in place, we can look at what the profile actually contains.

1.3 A Business Profile Contains More Than Basic Contact Details

At its simplest, a Google Business Profile identifies a business.

A properly managed profile can do considerably more than that.

Google allows businesses to provide information such as their address or service area, opening hours, telephone number, website and business category. Depending on the category and the features available, the profile can contain additional information as well.[4]

Start with the business name.

Google says businesses should represent themselves as they are consistently represented and recognised in the real world across signage, stationery and other branding.[3]

That establishes one of the most important principles in this book.

The Business Profile should represent the real business accurately.

The category describes what kind of business it is.

The location information describes where customers can visit or, for an eligible service-area business, the area in which the business serves customers.

Opening hours tell customers when the business is available.

The telephone number and website give customers ways to continue the journey.

A business description can help potential customers understand what the business does and what distinguishes it.[10]

Attributes can provide additional factual information, depending on the business category and location. Google says attributes can appear across Search and Maps, and some can help a business appear when people search for places with those characteristics.[11]

Depending on the business, the profile may also support services, products, menus or other category-specific information.

A complete Business Profile therefore looks different from one business to another.

A dentist does not need exactly the same information as a restaurant.

A hotel does not have the same profile as a plumber.

A storefront business can require different information from a service-area business.

The profile can also contain visual information. Businesses can add a logo, cover photograph, other photographs and videos. Google recommends business-specific photographs that help customers recognise the premises, see products or understand the services being provided.[12]

Eligible businesses can publish posts containing updates, offers and events.[13]

Customers can leave reviews about their experiences, and verified businesses can reply to them.[14]

Completing a Google Business Profile means building a structured representation of the business:

• who it is;
• what it does;
• where it is or where it operates;
• when it is available;
• how customers can contact it;
• what services or products it provides;
• what it looks like;
• what useful current information it wants customers to know;
• what customers say about their experiences with it.

The available and appropriate fields vary by business.

Profile Completeness means completing the information that genuinely applies to that business and keeping it accurate.

We will make that practical when we get to Profile Completeness and Mirroring.

For now, the important thing is to understand the scale of what we are managing.

A Google Business Profile is a detailed collection of information that can help Google and potential customers understand the business.

1.4 The Profile Can Move a Customer Towards Action

A Business Profile provides information and can help a customer act on it.

The business wants the right potential customer to take the next step.

For many local businesses, that step is a phone call.

Someone searching for an emergency plumber may not want to spend twenty minutes researching the company. They may confirm that the business provides the service they need, look at its reviews and call.

For another business, the next step might be visiting the website.

For a storefront, it may be requesting directions.

Depending on the business and the features available, Google also supports business links that can help customers view menus or services, book appointments, make reservations and place food or shopping orders.[15]

So the journey can be very short.

The customer searches.

They discover the business.

They examine the profile.

Then they call, visit, book, reserve, order or continue to the website.

That makes accuracy commercially important.

An incorrect telephone number can stop an enquiry.

A wrong address or misplaced map pin can interfere with a customer's attempt to reach the business.

A broken booking link can interrupt the transaction.

Incorrect opening hours can send somebody to a closed premises.

Reviews and photographs can influence the same journey.

Customers can read what previous customers have said.

They can view photographs and videos uploaded by the business and media contributed by other Google Maps users.[12][16]

Posts can provide current updates, offers and event information, and certain post types can include action buttons that take customers towards an appropriate next step.[13]

The exact actions will vary because the businesses are different.

A restaurant may want somebody to view a menu, reserve a table, order food or request directions.

A locksmith may want the phone to ring.

A dentist may want somebody to book an appointment or visit the website.

A shop may want someone to request directions and come through the door.

Managing a Business Profile also means asking:

What does the customer want to do next, and have we made that easy?

Google's Business Profile Performance data can help us understand some of those actions. For verified profiles, Google provides information about how people discover and interact with the profile, including metrics such as views, clicks and other customer interactions. Depending on the business, available metrics can include calls, website clicks, direction requests and bookings.[9]

We will interpret those numbers properly later in the book. Calls, website clicks, direction requests and bookings help us understand what people do after visibility creates the opportunity to be found.

That gives us a useful sequence:

Visibility creates the opportunity.

The Business Profile helps the customer decide what to do with it.

1.5 The Profile Has More Than One Contributor

This is one of the most important differences between a Business Profile and a page on the business's own website.

On the website, the business largely decides what gets published.

On a Business Profile, other people are involved.

Google says the information in profiles can come from publicly available sources, licensed third-party data, business owners, other users and Google's own interactions with businesses and places.[5]

Customers and other Google Maps users can contribute photographs and videos.

They can leave reviews.

Users can also suggest changes to factual place information.

The profile customers see can therefore combine information from the business, contributions from other people and information Google decides to display.

Reviews are the clearest example.

The business can ask genuine customers for reviews and respond to them. Google says reviews are eligible for removal when they violate its policies, and specifically tells businesses not to report a review merely because they disagree with it or dislike it.[19]

Photographs work in a similar way.

The business can build a strong collection showing its premises, people, products and services.

Customers and other Maps users can add their own media as well.[16]

That makes monitoring part of the job as well as publishing.

If a review appears, somebody needs to know it is there.

If important profile information changes, somebody needs to decide whether the change is correct.

If new customer media appears, it becomes part of the public representation of the business.

If user-generated content genuinely breaches Google's policies, we need to know the appropriate reporting process.

Management means controlling the parts we are responsible for, staying aware of the parts contributed by others and responding appropriately when something needs attention.

The customer sees one Business Profile, regardless of whether a particular piece of information came from the business, another user or Google.

And they judge the business from the whole thing.

There is one more major source of information we need to understand before we can manage that profile properly.

The business's own website.

1.6 The Profile and the Website Need to Describe the Same Business

A Google Business Profile and a business website are different things.

They have different jobs.

The profile provides structured business information within Google Search and Maps.

The website gives the business far more space to explain its products, services, locations and expertise.

Google explicitly says Business Profile information can be compiled from publicly available information, including crawled content from a business's official website.[5]

That gives the website an important role in Business Profile management.

If the profile says the business opens at 8am and the website says 9am, we have a conflict.

If the profile shows one telephone number and the website shows another, we need to know why.

If the profile shows the current address but the website still contains the previous one, the business is presenting two different locations.

If the profile describes one set of services and the website describes something materially different, we need to establish what the business actually does.

The website and Business Profile have different jobs and can use different wording. The fundamental facts should still describe the same real-world business.

Google Search Central also recommends establishing a business's official website with Google, including by verifying ownership in Search Console. It documents structured data as another way of providing explicit information about a business or organisation to Google.[20]

For local businesses, Google supports LocalBusiness structured data, which can describe information such as business hours, address, telephone number and other applicable details in a standardised format Google can understand.[21]

Useful visible information remains essential for customers, while structured data gives search systems another standardised way to understand applicable business information. The official website therefore communicates with both people and search systems.

For a single-location business, the relationship may be straightforward.

The Business Profile points to the official website.

The website describes the same business.

The important facts agree.

For a genuine multi-location business, the relationship becomes more detailed. Individual locations can have their own eligible Business Profiles, while the website can contain location-specific pages describing the real information for each branch.

Later, Mirroring will turn this into a management process.

For now, the principle is enough:

One real business. One accurate identity. Important facts aligned across the platforms that represent it.

And because the business, website and Business Profile can all change, that relationship needs to be checked more than once.

1.7 Why This Becomes an Ongoing Management Job

At this point, the distinction between creating a Business Profile and managing one should be clear.

Creating or claiming the correct profile gives an eligible business a presence it can manage on Google Search and Maps.

Management is what keeps that presence useful.

The reason is simple.

Businesses change.

Opening hours change.

Services change.

Telephone numbers change.

Websites are rebuilt.

New locations open.

Old locations close.

Customers leave reviews and contribute photographs.

Google receives information from other sources.

Google can also update Business Profile information when its sources suggest that existing information is inaccurate or outdated.[22]

A profile can be completely accurate when we finish working on it and still need attention later.

Management means coming back.

Has anything changed?

Is the change correct?

Does the profile still agree with the real business?

Does the website still agree with the profile on the important facts?

Are the opening hours current?

Are the services current?

Do the links still work?

Have new customer reviews appeared?

Has somebody added media?

Does anything require a response?

Is there useful new information the business should add?

This is where ongoing management takes over from the initial setup.

The business keeps changing, and Google keeps receiving information after we finish an audit or edit the profile.

The work therefore becomes a cycle.

We check.

We correct.

We update.

We monitor.

We publish useful new information.

We respond where appropriate.

We measure.

Then we come back and do the work that is needed next.

Consistency means having a process that keeps the work that genuinely needs attention moving.

If a review arrives, somebody sees it.

If the business changes its hours, the profile gets updated.

If the website and profile stop agreeing, somebody notices.

If new photographs are available, they make their way into the process.

If Google changes important information, somebody checks whether the change is right.

If the profile has not been reviewed for months, the system brings us back to it.

That is Google Business Profile management.

It is the ongoing job of making sure the information Google and potential customers rely on continues to represent the real business accurately.

For one profile, you can build that process manually.

As the number of profiles grows, the difficult part becomes making sure all of those small responsibilities keep happening without disappearing into inboxes, spreadsheets, folders and people's memories.

We will come back to that problem later.

First, we need to understand the information system we are managing.

We know now what a Business Profile is, where it can appear, what it can contain, how customers can act on it and how information from several contributors can shape what customers see.

The next question is:

Where does Google get all of this business information from?

That is where the foundation of Mirroring really begins.

Notes

1. Google Business Profile Help, “Get started with Google Business Profile”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/7039811?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
2. Google Business Profile Help, “Tips to improve your local ranking on Google”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/7091?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
3. Google Business Profile Help, “Guidelines for representing your business on Google”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
4. Google Business Profile Help, “Edit your Business Profile”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/3039617?hl=en. Checked 3 September 2026.
5. Google Business Profile Help, “Understand how Google sources & uses info in Business Profiles & local search results”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/2721884?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
6. Google Business Profile Help, “Add or claim your Business Profile”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/2911778/. Checked 3 September 2026.
7. Google Business Profile Help, “Request ownership of a Business Profile”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/4566671?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
8. Google Business Profile Help, “Verify your business on Google”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/7107242?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
9. Google Business Profile Help, “Understand your Business Profile performance and insights”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/9918094?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
10. Google Business Profile Help, “Manage your Business Profile description”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/13682007?hl=en. Checked 3 September 2026.
11. Google Business Profile Help, “Manage your business attributes”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/9049526?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
12. Google Business Profile Help, “Manage your Business Profile photos and videos”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/6103862?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
13. Google Business Profile Help, “Create and manage posts on your Business Profile”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/7342169?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
14. Google Business Profile Help, “Manage customer reviews”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/3474050?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
15. Google Business Profile Help, “Manage your local business links”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/6218037?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
16. Google Maps Help, “Add, remove and share photos or videos in Google Maps”, https://support.google.com/maps/answer/2622947?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
17. Google Maps Help, “Edit place information in Google Maps”, https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7084895?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
18. Google Business Profile Help, “Tips to get more reviews”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/3474122?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
19. Google Business Profile Help, “Report inappropriate reviews on your Business Profile”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/4596773. Checked 3 September 2026.
20. Google Search Central, “Establish your business details with Google”, Google for Developers, https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/establish-business-details. Checked 3 September 2026.
21. Google Search Central, “Local Business (LocalBusiness) structured data”, Google for Developers, https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/local-business. Checked 3 September 2026.
22. Google Business Profile Help, “Understand Google updates on your Business Profile”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/3480441?hl=en. Checked 3 September 2026.