Google Business Profile and local ranking: how local results are ranked and how to optimise for them

How local results work

Google describes the situation simply: “When a customer searches for a business or place near their location, they’ll find local results on Google Maps and Search.” In regular Search these results usually appear as a block of map listings, commonly called the local pack. In Google Maps they appear as a list next to the map. Both are driven by the same signals.

The goal of the system, in Google's words: “Google tries to show customers the kind of nearby business they’d like to visit.” A search for “dentist” on a phone in Leeds should show dentists in Leeds, ordered by how well each one fits the search and how well-known it is.

A Business Profile is not built only from what you type into it. Google compiles profiles from several sources: what the owner adds, licensed data from third parties, contributions from users (photos, reviews, suggested edits), and “Publicly-available information, such as crawled web content (e.g., information from a business’ official website)”. That is why your website matters for local SEO even though the ranking happens on the profile.

One rule frames everything else in this lesson: “There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.” Google Ads can buy you an ad slot above or inside local results, but not a higher organic position.

What Google officially says

Relevance, distance and prominence

Google does not publish how the three factors are weighted, and it says why: it keeps the algorithm details confidential to keep the ranking fair. What it does publish is a definition of each factor, which tells you where your effort pays off.

Relevance

“Relevance is how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for.” Google's advice is direct: “To help Google better understand your business and match it to relevant searches, provide complete and detailed business info.”

In practice, relevance comes mostly from your categories, then from services, products, attributes and the description, and from what Google reads on your website. Google confirms the weight of categories on its category help page: “The categories you select affect your local ranking on Google.” For attributes: “If you add certain attributes, your business might show up in searches for places with those attributes.” A café that marks Wi-Fi and outdoor seating can appear when people search for exactly that.

Distance

“Distance refers to how far each business is from the customer who’s searching.” And when the searcher's location is not shared: “If a customer doesn’t share where they are, Google uses what it knows about their location.”

You cannot optimise distance. A clinic ranks best for people near its verified address, and the same search typed two kilometres away can produce a different local pack. A service-area business that lists a whole region does not rank equally in every town of that region; its base location still matters. The only legitimate thing you can do about distance is keep your address or service area accurate. Faking a location, with a virtual office or a mailbox, is what the guidelines forbid (see below).

Prominence

“Prominence means how well-known a business is.” Google adds: “Prominent places are more likely to show up in search results. This factor’s also based on info like how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have. More reviews and positive ratings can help your business’s local ranking.”

That gives you three levers: reviews (count and rating), links and mentions from other websites (local press, associations, suppliers, directories that real customers use), and the real-world reputation that produces both. A famous museum or a well-known restaurant chain is prominent long before any SEO work starts. For a small business, prominence is built slowly and honestly.

Who can have a profile

The basic test: “To qualify for a Business Profile on Google, a business must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours.” There are three ways to meet it:

• Storefront business: customers come to you. You show the address, and “Businesses showing their address on Google should maintain permanent fixed signage of their business name at the address.”
• Service-area business: you travel to customers, like a plumber or a cleaning service. “If you’re a service-area business, you should hide your business address from customers.” You set service areas by city, postal code or region: “You can set up to 20 service areas based on the cities, postal codes, or other areas you serve.” A radius is not an option any more: “You can’t set your service area as a radius distance around your business.” And the size has a limit: “The boundaries of your profile’s overall service area shouldn’t extend farther than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based.”
• Hybrid business: customers visit you and you also go to them, like a garage with roadside service. You show the address and set a service area.

Google's policy overview lists businesses that are not eligible: lead generation agents or companies; brands, organizations, artists and other online-only businesses; rental or for-sale properties such as vacation homes; and ongoing services or classes at a location you don't own or represent.

The address rules close the most common loopholes:

• Virtual offices: “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.”
• Co-working spaces: “Businesses can't list an office at a co-working space unless that office maintains clear signage, receives customers at the location during business hours, and is staffed during business hours by your business staff.”
• Service-area businesses: “Service-area businesses can't list a "virtual" office unless that office is staffed during business hours.”
• Mailboxes: “P.O. boxes or mailboxes located at remote locations aren't acceptable.”
• Duplicates: “Do not create more than one page for each location of your business, either in a single account or multiple accounts.”

Setting up a complete and accurate profile

Start by verifying the profile; many features, including replying to reviews and the Performance report, need a verified profile. Then fill in every field that applies to your business, truthfully. Use the checklist below as a working list.

Business name

“Your name should reflect your business’s real-world name, as used consistently on your storefront, website, stationery, and as known to customers.” Google is explicit about the consequence of padding it: “Including unnecessary information in your business name isn't permitted, and could result in the suspension of your Business Profile.”

The guidelines list what a name must not include, with examples:

Trademark signs, fully capitalised words (SUBWAY instead of Subway), special characters and legal terms such as LLC are also out, unless real-world proof shows them as part of the name. Adding a service and a city, such as Plumber Manchester, to a name may bring a short-term lift, but it is the classic reason for suspension, and competitors can suggest an edit to correct it.

Address and service areas

“Make sure your address and/or service area is accurate and precise.” Suite or floor numbers go in the second address line. If the address cannot be found, you can place a pin on the map. Service-area businesses that work from home remove the address and keep only the service area.

Categories

“Choose the fewest number of categories it takes to describe your overall core business.” Pick the most specific primary category (“Nail salon”, not “Salon”), then add a few additional categories only for real parts of the business. Google's test is that a category should complete the statement “This business IS a” rather than “this business HAS a.” And: “Do not use categories solely as keywords or to describe attributes of your business.” A motel with a pool is a Motel, not a Swimming Pool. Changing a category may trigger re-verification, so do it deliberately.

Hours

Enter regular customer-facing hours and add special hours for holidays and temporary changes. Some businesses should not list hours at all, including hotels, schools, cinemas, transport services and event venues. Seasonal businesses set hours for the season and can mark the profile as temporarily closed off-season.

Attributes, description and photos

Attributes are quick facts customers filter on: accessibility, payment options, Wi-Fi, outdoor seating. Some are collected from customers, so keep them true. The description explains what you offer and your history; it must not show links (“No links of any type are allowed.”) and must not focus on promotions or prices. Photos and videos should show the real place, the team and the work. They help customers more than any description.

Products, services and menus

List your services, and if you are a restaurant or a service business, a complete menu, not a sample of popular items. Retailers can show in-store products, but “This is available only for retail businesses in eligible countries or regions.”

Website and phone

“Use a local phone number instead of a central call center helpline number whenever possible.” Also: “The phone number must be under the direct control of the business.” Link the website field to the page that represents this location. For a single-location business that is usually the home page; for chains, it is the location page.

Reviews: getting them and answering them

Reviews feed prominence directly, and they are the first thing many customers read. Google's line on what is allowed is short: you may “Solicit or encourage the posting of content that does represent a genuine experience, without offering incentives to do so or attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review.”

Asking for reviews

“To leave reviews, you can ask customers to visit a Google link or scan a QR code.” You can create both from the profile. In practice, the businesses that collect reviews steadily are the ones that ask every customer, at the same point in every job: on the receipt, in the follow-up email, on a card at the counter. Asking consistently beats occasional campaigns, and it naturally produces a mix of ratings. Google notes that this is fine: “A mix of positive and negative feedback often feels more trustworthy.”

Replying to reviews

“When you reply to customer reviews, it shows that you value their feedback.” Google's tips for replies: keep them short, polite and relevant, “Be conversational, not promotional”, and write something specific rather than the same thank-you to everyone. For negative reviews, acknowledge mistakes, explain what you can and cannot do, apologise when it is appropriate, and move complex cases to phone or email. One rule has no exceptions: “Never share a reviewer's private information or engage in personal attacks.” Replies are public and are checked against the same content policies as reviews.

What is prohibited

Google's review tips page states the core rule: “Offering incentives, like free or discounted goods or services, in exchange for customers to post reviews, change reviews, or remove negative reviews is considered fake & misleading content and is strictly prohibited.”

The Maps user-generated content policy lists the rest. Fake engagement includes “Reviews or ratings that have been paid for, directly or in kind.” Merchants may not “Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers”, which is what review gating does when a survey sends only happy customers to Google. Also: “When soliciting reviews, merchants should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises, nor should they request that specific content be included.” Staff quotas are named explicitly: “Merchants requesting that staff solicit a certain number of reviews”. Reviews based on a conflict of interest, such as current or former employees and family members, are removed too.

The penalty goes beyond deleting the fake reviews. Restrictions can include: “Business Profile will not be able to receive new reviews or ratings for set period of time” and “Business Profile will display a warning to let consumers know that fake reviews were removed”. A public warning on your profile costs far more than the reviews ever gained.

Posts and other profile features

Posts let you publish updates, offers and events that show on the profile in Search and Maps. Offers and events take dates; updates can carry a photo, a video and a button with a link. Every post is reviewed against Google's posts content policy before it goes live, and “Posts older than 6 months are archived unless a date range is set.” Google does not describe posts as a ranking factor, so treat them as a way to inform customers who already found you: opening hours over holidays, a new service, an event.

Older guides also recommend seeding the Questions and Answers section. The help article that used to describe that feature is no longer available, and we found no current Google help page for it in October 2026, so do not build your plan around Q&A.

The website side of local SEO

Your website supports the profile in two ways: Google reads it as a source of business information, and it is where profile visitors land. The related lesson Structured data covers markup in general; here is the local part.

One location page per real location

A business with several locations needs one page per location, with content that is genuinely about that place: the address, opening hours, how to get there, parking, the team, the services offered there, photos of that site and reviews from its customers. Link each profile to its own page. Do not create pages for towns where you have no location just to rank there; a service-area business can describe the areas it serves, but only where it really works and has something specific to say.

NAP consistency

NAP stands for name, address and phone. Use exactly the same business name, address format and phone number on your website, on the Business Profile and in the directories you are listed in. Different spellings of a street, an old phone number on a directory or a former business name in your footer confuse customers and give Google conflicting data to reconcile. When you move or change numbers, update all of them.

LocalBusiness structured data

“With Local Business structured data, you can tell Google about business hours, different departments within a business, reviews (if your site captures reviews about other businesses), and more.” The required properties are name and address. Google recommends that you “Use the most specific LocalBusiness sub-type possible”, such as Dentist or Restaurant, and documents useful recommended properties:

• url: “The fully-qualified URL of the specific business location.”
• telephone: “Be sure to include the country code and area code in the phone number.”
• geo: for latitude and longitude, “The precision must be at least 5 decimal places.”
• openingHoursSpecification: the hours, including seasonal closures.

One trap: aggregateRating and review carry the note “This property is only recommended for sites that capture reviews about other local businesses”. Marking up your own Google reviews on your own location page does not fit that description. And as with all markup: “Google does not guarantee that features that consume structured data will show up in search results.”

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Dentist",
  "name": "Example Dental",
  "url": "https://example.com/locations/leeds/",
  "telephone": "+44 113 000 0000",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "12 Example Street",
    "addressLocality": "Leeds",
    "postalCode": "LS1 1AA",
    "addressCountry": "GB"
  },
  "geo": { "@type": "GeoCoordinates", "latitude": 53.79648, "longitude": -1.54785 },
  "openingHoursSpecification": [{
    "@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
    "dayOfWeek": ["Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday"],
    "opens": "09:00", "closes": "18:00"
  }]
}
</script>

Embedding a map and linking the profile

An embedded Google map with a directions button on the contact or location page helps visitors find you. Google does not document it as a ranking factor, so add it for users, not for rankings. Make sure the page you link from the profile loads fast, works on mobile and shows the phone number and address near the top: most people who click through from a profile want to call, book or get directions.

Multi-location businesses

Chains follow extra rules. “All locations must have the same name unless the business’s real world representation consistently varies from location to location.” Google's example is “The Home Depot”, not “The Home Depot at Springfield”. All locations that provide the same service must also share the one category that best represents the business. Sub-brands and different types of operations, such as retail and wholesale, may use their own consistent names.

Each location gets one profile, its own local phone number where possible and its own landing page. Google's business links policy says the same about action links: “For businesses with multiple locations, action links must lead to a website for a specific location.” Linking every profile to the home page wastes the location pages you built.

Two related cases. Departments that operate as distinct public-facing entities, such as a store's vision centre or a hospital department, may have their own profiles with their own name and a different category. Individual practitioners such as doctors, lawyers or estate agents can have their own profile if they are public-facing and can be contacted at the verified location during stated hours; support staff cannot.

Spam, suspensions and restrictions

“We may suspend or disable Business Profiles that don’t follow our guidelines.” The most common causes follow directly from the guidelines above:

• Keywords, cities or taglines in the business name.
• A P.O. box: “Merchants that set their business address at a P.O. Box will have their profile suspended.”
• A virtual office or an unstaffed co-working desk used as an address.
• A business that does not exist where it claims: “If we determine that your business doesn't exist in the location you claim, Google will disable your profile.”
• Duplicate profiles for the same location.
• Fake or incentivised reviews, which lead to the review restrictions described earlier.

Suspensions can also hit a whole account: “If a merchant’s account is restricted, all Business Profiles associated with that account will be suspended.” Agencies that manage many clients from one account should keep that in mind.

If your profile is suspended, fix the cause first, then use the Business Profile appeals tool. You can attach evidence such as a business registration, a business licence, tax certificates or utility bills that show the same name and address as the profile. Two warnings from Google's help page: “Do not create a new Business Profile for the same business.” and “Appeals can only be submitted once.” Prepare the evidence before you press submit.

The same rules work in your favour against competitors who break them: you can suggest an edit to a stuffed name on Maps or report a fake listing. Stick to facts, and expect it to take time.

Measuring local performance

Your first data source is the profile's Performance report. “Performance data is available only for verified Business Profiles.” It shows interactions, the search terms people used to find the profile, views on Search and Maps, direction requests, calls, website clicks, messages and bookings where they apply. Website clicks are “The number of times people clicked on the website link on your Business Profile.” Compare the same months year over year and watch calls and direction requests: they are the closest thing to a customer walking in.

Your second source is your analytics. Clicks from a profile can look like ordinary organic Google traffic, so add UTM parameters to the website link in the profile to separate them in GA4:

https://example.com/locations/leeds/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gbp

Keep a self-referencing canonical without parameters on the landing page, so the tagged URL is not treated as a separate page. The lesson GA4 for SEO explains how to read that traffic.

Finally, check local rankings from several points in your area, not only from your office. Because distance is part of the ranking, a business can be first in the local pack around the corner and absent three streets away. Record the same queries from the same points each month, so changes reflect your work rather than a different test location.

Common mistakes

• ✕Keywords in the business nameExample Dental Leeds Emergency Dentist instead of Example Dental. It breaks the name rules and invites suspension.
• ✕A virtual office as the addressA rented mailing address where nobody works is not eligible. Use a service area instead.
• ✕Too many or wrong categoriesA category for every service, or a category that describes what the business has rather than what it is.
• ✕Visible home address for a service-area businessIf customers do not come to you, hide the address and set service areas.
• ✕Review gating or rewardsSending only happy customers to Google, or giving a discount for a review, can bring restrictions and a public warning.
• ✕Unanswered negative reviewsSilence reads as indifference to the next customer. Reply calmly and move details offline.
• ✕Inconsistent NAPOld addresses and phone numbers on the site or in directories after a move.
• ✕All profiles linked to the home pageEach location's profile should link to its own location page.
• ✕A second profile after a suspensionGoogle says not to create a new profile for the same business; appeal instead.

FAQ

Sources

• Google Business Profile Help — Tips to improve your local ranking on Google
• Google Business Profile Help — Guidelines for representing your business on Google
• Google Business Profile Help — Overview of Google Business Profile policies
• Google Business Profile Help — Manage your service areas
• Google Business Profile Help — Manage your business category
• Google Business Profile Help — Manage your business attributes
• Google Business Profile Help — How Google sources and uses info in Business Profiles
• Google Business Profile Help — Tips to get more reviews
• Google Maps — User-generated content policy: prohibited and restricted content
• Google Business Profile Help — Business Profile restrictions for policy violations
• Google Business Profile Help — Fix suspended or disabled profiles
• Google Business Profile Help — Create and manage posts
• Google Business Profile Help — Business links policies and guidelines
• Google Business Profile Help — Understand your Business Profile performance
• Google Search Central — Local business (LocalBusiness) structured data

Quotes checked against the official pages on 30 October 2026.