Google Business Profile and AI search

For a local business, the Google Business Profile is the most important page it doesn't host itself. It's the panel that appears in Google Maps and Search with your hours, phone number, photos and reviews, and it's one of the main sources Google's AI answers draw on.

Why the profile matters for AI search

Google's own guidance on AI features lists keeping "Merchant Center and Business Profile information" up to date among its best practices. AI answers about local businesses often repeat what a profile says: hours, services, location and what reviewers mention.

The same profile also feeds Google's ordinary local results. Google says those are mainly based on relevance (how well the profile matches the search), distance and prominence (how well known the business is, including reviews and links). It says businesses with complete, accurate information are more likely to appear, and that verification makes a profile more likely to show.

What Google's guidelines require

Google's "Guidelines for representing your business on Google" are short and specific. The points that cause most problems:

• Name. It should reflect the business's real-world name, as used on your signage, website and stationery. Taglines, locations, phone numbers and opening hours don't belong in the name.
• Address. The profile must be for an actual, real-world location. Virtual offices and PO boxes don't qualify.
• Hours. Provide your regular customer-facing hours. Some types of business, such as appointment-only services, have different rules, so check the guidelines for yours.
• Categories. Use as few categories as possible to describe your core business, and don't use categories as keywords.
• One profile per location. Don't create more than one profile for each location, in one account or several.

Breaking these can get a profile suspended. Adding service or town keywords to the business name breaks the first of these rules.

A practical set-up

This is the order we work through for a client's profile:

1. Check ownership. The profile should be owned by the business, with any agency (including us) added as a manager. If a former web designer or staff member owns it, transfer ownership first.
2. Name, address and phone. Make them match your website exactly, character for character. Use the same phone number everywhere.
3. Primary category. Choose the category that describes what you mainly do. Add secondary categories only where they're true and distinct.
4. Services. Add each main service with a short description and a price or "from" price where you can. These are the details AI answers repeat.
5. Hours. Set regular hours and special hours for bank holidays and closures. Wrong hours were one of the errors we logged most often.
6. Description and attributes. Write a plain description of who you serve and what you do, and fill in attributes such as accessibility, parking and payment options.
7. Photos. Add recent photos of the premises, team and work. Keep them current.
8. Website link. Link to your homepage or, for multi-site businesses, to the page for that location.

Reviews: what's allowed

AI answers quote what customers say, so reviews matter. The rules on collecting them are strict.

• Google's policy prohibits offering incentives such as payment, discounts, free goods or services in exchange for a review, and prohibits selectively soliciting positive reviews or discouraging negative ones. Content based on a conflict of interest, including from current or former staff, isn't allowed either.
• UK law. Since 6 April 2025, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 has banned fake reviews, concealed incentivised reviews and misleading presentation of reviews, such as hiding negative ones. The CMA has published guidance for businesses on complying.

The safe process is simple: ask every customer, in the same way, at the same point, with no reward. Reply to reviews politely and briefly. If you have confidentiality duties, as healthcare and legal businesses do, never confirm in a reply that the reviewer is a patient or client.

One related point: marking up testimonials on your own website with review structured data won't earn star ratings in Google. Google says pages using LocalBusiness or other Organization structured data are ineligible for the star review feature when the business controls the reviews about itself.

Keep the profile and website in step

AI answers can draw on both your profile and your website, sometimes in the same sentence. When they disagree, the answer may repeat either version. Common examples are Saturday hours that differ between the two, or one business listed twice under two names.

Whenever you change prices, hours, services or staff, update the website and the profile on the same day. If you use LocalBusiness structured data on your website, make sure it matches both.

Bing Places

Microsoft's advice to local businesses in its February 2026 announcement of AI Performance reporting was to register with Bing Places for Business and keep address, hours and contact details current. It takes a few minutes, and you can import details from your Google profile.

Next steps

Check your profile against the list above, then ask AI the questions your customers ask and see whether your profile details appear in the answers. Our 20-point checklist covers the website side, and the measurement guide explains how to tell whether changes worked.

Profile upkeep is part of the monthly plan. To see what AI says about your business today, ask for a free AI snapshot.