Google Business Profile

Editorial approval scope: The team checked current source fidelity, scope boundaries, dates, arithmetic, reader usefulness, practical workflow, and general-information limitations.

A profile represents an eligible real-world business

Google's business representation guidelines call for consistent real-world representation, accurate core information, and the fewest categories needed to describe the business. The profile name should match the name used on signage, website, stationery, and customer-facing materials. Adding services, cities, credentials, or promotional language to the name can create a misleading listing and policy risk.

Google's eligibility guidance says eligible businesses generally make in-person contact with customers during stated hours. Online-only and lead-generation companies are ineligible. P.O. boxes and remote mailboxes are also ineligible addresses. A virtual office is ineligible; a coworking office requires clear signage, customer reception during business hours, and staffing by the business's team.

Address and service area answer different questions

A center where families can visit during stated hours may show its verified address. A practice that travels to homes and has no staffed customer-facing location should use the applicable service-area configuration and hide an ineligible address.

The service area should reflect where the practice actually operates. It does not prove licensure, payer participation, clinician availability, travel capacity, or case-specific appropriateness. Keep those gates in the intake workflow.

Use one profile per actual location unless Google's rules provide a specific exception. A marketing page, rented mailbox, or future site should never become a pretend location.

Assign durable ownership and limited access

The practice should retain primary ownership through a durable organization-controlled account. Add agency or employee access at the minimum role needed. Record who approves name, category, hours, address, service area, phone, URL, images, posts, services, messaging, and review replies.

Remove access promptly when a vendor or employee leaves. Keep recovery methods current and use strong authentication. An agency relationship should never leave the practice unable to control or recover its own profile.

Make the profile match real operations

Maintain a source-of-truth record for:

• legal and public-facing business name
• physical address and location status
• service area and services actually offered
• regular and special hours
• monitored phone, website, and appointment route
• primary and additional categories
• accessibility information and contact options
• opening, closure, relocation, and temporary-change dates

Google Search Central explains that a claimed, verified profile can manage business details shown in Search and Maps through business-detail controls. Match the website's location pages to current profile facts. Keep facility, team, payer, and service claims dated and scoped.

Protect client privacy in every feature

Photos and videos should be purpose-created or properly authorized. Check backgrounds, whiteboards, schedules, screens, vehicle plates, documents, voices, and metadata before publishing. A general media release may not cover every platform, use, or date.

Treat messages as an intake channel with monitored hours, access controls, retention rules, emergency instructions, and a secure handoff for sensitive information. Avoid asking people to post diagnoses, treatment details, or other private information in public questions or reviews.

Handle reviews with a written policy

Use a neutral request process available to the defined eligible group. The FTC's Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule Q&A explains that the rule bars fake or false reviews, certain sentiment-conditioned incentives, deceptive suppression, and controlled review properties presented as independent.

When responding publicly, never confirm that a reviewer is a client or disclose facts about services, scheduling, billing, or a family. A brief response can acknowledge the feedback and offer a private contact route. Preserve the original review and internal facts for authorized follow-up.

A fictional profile audit

Sunrise Path ABA, a fictional two-location practice, reviews 18 required profile fields across both locations. Fifteen match the approved source record. One location has outdated holiday hours, one lists a service that is paused, and one agency account belongs to a former contractor.

Field accuracy is 15 of 18, or 83.3%. The practice corrects all three issues, records approval and evidence, and rechecks the live display. It reports change completion separately from field accuracy.

During the month, seven profile inquiries reach the monitored intake route. Six receive a human response within the target. That response rate is 6 of 7. It does not establish the profile as the cause of the inquiries or promise that any person can start care.

Audit changes and outcomes

Review the profile on a set cadence and after moves, closures, holidays, staffing changes, service changes, phone updates, or website releases. Check both the management interface and public result.

Track valid calls, messages, direction requests, website visits, access requests, human response, and mature intake outcomes with explicit attribution limits. Platform metrics can change and may include repeated activity. Reconcile them with the practice's own unique-record rules.