Overview of Google Business Profile policies

Any content added to their Business Profile must accurately represent the location in question and follow the policies and guidelines. When violations occur, we’ll take necessary steps to restrict the content from displaying, or restrict access to the profile or merchant account.

All Google Business Profile policies & guidelines

This article outlines our key policies and explains the most common issues merchants may experience, but it is not comprehensive. View a complete list of Google Business Profile policies & guidelines.

Prohibited and restricted content

All content added to a Business Profile must abide by Google’s Prohibited and restricted content policies. These policies apply to all content formats, which includes Reviews, Photos, and Videos. Profiles and content that does not meet these criteria may be rejected from publication on Google.

Account level restrictions

Merchants can lose access to their Business Profile or have their access restricted for the following reasons:

Google Account not in good standing

If a Google Account is not in good standing (e.g. it is disabled, suspended, or deleted) a merchant must take steps to fix the issue before they can access their Google Business Profile.

Account restricted from Business Profile activity

If a merchant displays a pattern of violating Google Business Profile policies, they may have their Business Profile access restricted.

If a merchant’s account is restricted, all Business Profiles associated with that account will be suspended.

When an account is restricted, content added from the restricted account will be rejected. The account must be reinstated before any previously removed content can be successfully reinstated or new content added to the profile.

Profile suspension due to other Google product account restriction

When a Business Profile is created via an account associated with another Google product, restriction of the non-Business Profile product account may result in suspension of the Business Profile.

When a non-Business Profile account is restricted, content added to the business profile from the restricted account may be rejected. The non-Business Profile account must be reinstated before reinstating the profile.

Eligibility

Google has the following restrictions and qualifications for Business Profiles:

Ineligible businesses

To qualify for a Business Profile on Google, a business must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours.

For example, the following businesses are not eligible for a Business Profile:

• An ongoing service, class, or meeting at a location that you don't own or have the authority to represent.
• Lead generation agents or companies.
• Brands, organizations, artists, and other online-only businesses.
• Rental or for-sale properties such as vacation homes, model homes, or vacant apartments.

For more details on eligibility, review Business eligibility & ownership.

Business does not exist

To keep data on Google as accurate as possible, Google uses information from different sources such as user reports and licensed content.

If we determine that your business doesn't exist in the location you claim, Google will disable your profile.

P.O. Box address

Businesses with a P.O. Box address aren't permitted on Google Business Profile. Merchants that set their business address at a P.O. Box will have their profile suspended.

Identity change

Merchants must accurately represent their business identity. Edits that significantly change business identity will be rejected. For more details, review the Misrepresentation policy.

Ownership

Issues with Business Profile ownership include:

Unauthorized profile access

When it’s determined that a different merchant is the authorized owner of a business profile, access to other unauthorized users will be revoked.

Inactive owner

Merchants that don't access their Google Business Profile for long periods of time may have their access revoked and content removed after adequate warning.

Posting restrictions

When user contributions to a profile are consistently unhelpful, harmful, off-topic or generally violate Google Policies, we may limit or suspend user generated content for that profile. An example would be a series of poor reviews for a business for reasons not related to the business itself. Learn more about posting restrictions.

Reasons submitted content may be rejected

Content added to a Business Profile may be rejected for several reasons.

Deleted profile

Content and appeals may be rejected by Google when the associated profile is deleted by any user with access to the profile before Google reviews or publishes the content.

Disabled profile

Google may reject contents and appeals when the associated profile is disabled before Google reviews or publishes the content.

Disabled profiles must be reinstated first before content can be successfully contributed to the profile.

Learn how to fix disabled profiles.

Suspended profile

Google may reject content and appeals when the associated profile is suspended before Google reviews or publishes the content.

Suspended profiles must be reinstated first before content can be successfully contributed to the profile.

Learn how to fix suspended profiles.

Verification required

To update your business name and other info on Google, you must first verify your business. Google may reject content added to unverified profiles.

For more guidance on getting verified, follow these steps.

Other reasons content may fail to publish or appeals may be rejected

Sometimes submitted content may fail to publish for non-policy reasons which may include:

Profile or content already live, edited, or deleted

Certain merchant-added content may not be added because Google has already accepted the content. An example would be if you try to add the same photo or phone number more than once.

Similarly, Google may reject appeals when the appeal verdict cannot be determined due to the content in question being already live, deleted, or edited.

Submission Error

An error occurred while processing your content. Please try again later or reach out to the Google Business Profile support team.

Related Resources

• All Business Profile policies & guidelines