Google's Guidelines — Internal Reference

This is a living document. It mirrors Google's own guidelines section by section so our wording, our product decisions and the chat agent's answers all trace back to the same source. When Google changes a rule, the change lands in one place here and flows everywhere else.

Primary source	Guidelines for representing your business on Google
Secondary source	Business Profile photos & videos policy and posts content policy
Secondary source	Prohibited and restricted content
Last reviewed against source	2026-08-28
Review cadence	Quarterly, and immediately on any Google policy announcement

Google's pages are authoritative; this one is a summary. Where they disagree, Google wins and this document is wrong and needs updating. Never answer a policy question from this page alone if the stakes are a client's listing — open the source link and check.

How to keep this current

1. Open both source links and read them against the sections below.
2. Update the wording, and add a row to the revision log at the bottom.
3. Regenerate the support knowledge base so the chat agent picks up the change: pnpm --filter @gbp/api generate-support-knowledge (The "Support KB in sync" check blocks the merge if you forget.)
4. If a rule maps to something the platform writes to Google, check whether our automatic screening should change too — see Content Policy & Suspension Risk.

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Part 1 — Representing your business

Section order below mirrors Google's page.

Understand basic guidelines

Google: Represent your business as it is consistently represented and recognised in the real world — across signage, branding and stationery. Keep addresses and service areas accurate, use the minimum number of categories that describe the core business, and create only one profile per business location.

In the platform: Every profile under Profiles maps to one real location. Duplicates are a suspension risk, not just clutter.

Content guidelines for Business Profiles

Google: Published content should highlight what makes the business unique. Personal and confidential information is prohibited. A business may post its own contact details in profile content. Descriptions should be honest and relevant, and avoid low-quality content, a sales focus, or links.

⚠️ This general permission does NOT extend to Posts. Posts have their own stricter policy — see Part 2. This distinction is the single most misread thing on these pages.

What we enforce: The business description and service fields are gated to carry no contact information at all — no URL, phone or email, not even the business's own. That is deliberately stricter than Google requires, because contact info in a description reads as keyword/contact stuffing.

Name

Google: The name must be the business's real-world name as shown on storefront, website and stationery. Names may not include marketing taglines, store codes, trademarks, fully capitalised words, opening hours, phone numbers, special characters (without proof of real-world use), service information, or location/containment details.

In the platform: The profile name field. Name violations are among the fastest routes to a suspension.

What we enforce: Profile names are linted and you are warned before a risky name is written.

Address

Google: Use the precise, actual physical location. Never a P.O. box or virtual office. Suite and floor numbers are fine. Co-working spaces require clear signage, a customer reception and staff presence during stated hours. One profile per location — though individual practitioners and distinct departments may have their own (see below).

Service-area businesses

Google: A service-area business has one profile for its central office with a designated service area. Service areas should not extend beyond roughly two hours' driving time from the business. Delivery-only businesses must hide their address.

In the platform: Service areas are visible on the profile, and drive-time reach is modelled in Market Reach.

Storefront versus service-area businesses

Google: Distinguishes businesses customers visit from businesses that travel to customers. A business can be both (a storefront that also serves an area).

Website & phone

Google: Provide a local phone number that the business directly controls — not a call-tracking redirect or a premium-rate number.

In the platform: Profile fields under Profiles → Edit Info.

Business hours

Google: List the regular hours a customer can reach the business. Some business types (hotels, schools, cinemas) should not list hours. Seasonal businesses list current seasonal hours or mark the profile temporarily closed out of season.

Categories

Google: Use as few categories as possible, describing the overall core business. Pick categories that represent the main business — not amenities, not related businesses.

Select your category

Google: Choose categories that complete the sentence "This business IS a…", not "this business HAS a…".

In the platform: Primary and additional categories under Profiles → Edit Info. Choosing a category for search volume rather than accuracy is a restriction risk.

Menu

Google: Menus must be complete — every food, drink or service item available. Sample menus listing only popular items are not acceptable. Third-party ordering links and URLs are prohibited.

Products

Google: Retail businesses in eligible countries may showcase in-store products. Content must comply with the Shopping Ads Policy and must exclude regulated products such as alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceuticals.

Guidelines for chains, departments & individual practitioners

Chains & brands

Consistent names and categories across locations. All locations in the same country use identical names unless real-world representation genuinely differs.

Name consistency

Sub-brands and location-specific storefront variations are the accepted exceptions.

Category consistency

All locations share one primary category — the one that best represents the business.

Two or more brands at the same location

Do not combine brand names. If the brands operate independently, create separate profiles.

Virtual food brands

Co-located brands need separate signage. Delivery-only brands must hide the address and add a service area.

Rebranding

A minor name change that does not alter proper nouns or categories is a rebrand of the existing profile — not grounds for a new one.

Departments within other businesses, universities or institutions

A publicly-facing department operating as a distinct entity may have its own profile, with a different name and category from the parent.

Individual practitioners

Public-facing professionals (doctors, lawyers, agents) may have a dedicated profile if they are directly contactable at the verified location. A solo practitioner at a branded organisation uses the format [brand]: [practitioner name].

Marketing, promotions, or other contests

Google: Promotions must clearly link to the terms of the activity and provide clear guidelines and qualifications.

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Part 2 — Posts, photos & videos

Source: Business Profile photos & videos policy and posts content policy.

These rules are stricter than the general content guidelines in Part 1. A business may put its own contact details in some profile content; that permission does not carry over to Posts.

Phone numbers in posts — prohibited

Google: "we do not allow your post content to include a phone number." Use the Call now button, which uses the verified Business Profile number, instead of writing the number into the post body.

⚠️ This is the rule most often got wrong, including by well-meaning advice that generalises from "a business may share its own contact details". It may not, in a post.

What we enforce: Post text is screened for phone numbers, URLs, bare domains and email addresses, with no exception for the business's own — a scheduled or AI-generated post carrying any of them is held for a person. See Content Policy & Suspension Risk.

Hotels

Google: Hotels may not create offer posts, and may not include links to deals, promotions, special offers or discounts.

Images

Never place a phone number, URL or sales copy as text on top of an image — Google strips these.

Prohibited & restricted content

Google's photos, videos and posts policy defers to its broader prohibited and restricted content policy for the category list. That list is mirrored in Part 3 below.

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Part 3 — Prohibited & restricted content

Source: Prohibited and restricted content.

This policy governs content across the profile — posts, photos, videos, reviews and replies. It is the category list the posts policy defers to.

Fake & misleading content and behaviour

Category	Google's rule
Fake engagement	Content not based on a real experience, or that does not accurately represent the location.
Rating manipulation	Content posted because a business offered an incentive, and patterns indicating manipulation.
Impersonation	Content seeking to impersonate any person, group or organisation.
Misinformation	Harmful content containing deceptive or misleading health or medical information.
Misrepresentation	False or misleading accounts of the description or quality of a good or service.

In the platform: Rating manipulation is why review-request campaigns must never offer an incentive for a review. Misrepresentation is why AI-drafted copy is screened for misleading superlatives ("guaranteed #1", "best in the world").

Inappropriate content and behaviour

Prohibited: harassment (a specific threat of harm against individuals or defined groups), hate speech (direct calls to action to commit violence against protected individuals or groups), offensive content (using Google products to attack individuals or groups), personal information (another person's personal information posted without their consent), obscenity and profanity used to offend, sexually explicit content, adult-themed content, and violence and gore intended to shock.

What we enforce: Hate, sexual and harassing language blocks the write outright on every surface the platform writes to — it is never published, attended or unattended.

Restricted content

Calls to action for alcohol, gambling, tobacco, guns, health and medical devices, regulated pharmaceuticals, adult services, and financial services are restricted.

What we enforce: Restricted-category language routes the write to a human for review rather than blocking it, because context decides whether it is a problem.

Dangerous content

Content that facilitates or encourages serious physical harm to health, safety, property, animals or the environment.

Child safety

Content that sexually exploits or presents children in a sexual manner.

Terrorist content

Content that incites violence, promotes terrorist acts or celebrates terrorist attacks.

Off-topic

Posts must be based on experience of, or questions about, a specific location.

Advertising & solicitation

Google prohibits promotional or commercial content, and prohibits posting "email addresses, phone numbers, social media links, or links to other websites."

⚠️ This is the rule the phone-number-in-posts prohibition sits inside, and it is broader than phone numbers. Email addresses, social links and outbound URLs are prohibited on the same footing. Anyone reasoning "it's only a phone number that's banned" has read too narrowly.

What we enforce: Post text is screened for all four — phone numbers, URLs, bare domains and email addresses — with no own-contact exception. See Content Policy & Suspension Risk.

Unclear and repetitive content

• Unclear: content lacking meaning across languages, such as a random group of characters.
• Repetitive: the same content posted multiple times, from one account or several.

In the platform: Repetitive content is why republishing a rejected post unchanged is a bad idea, and why the platform paces its own writes rather than burst-publishing.

Defacement & mischief

Editing information about a location to make it inappropriate or low quality — as a prank, or to express social or political views.

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Known gaps in this document

Recorded honestly so nobody assumes coverage we don't have:

• Reviews policy — Google's rules on soliciting, incentivising and replying to reviews live on a separate page and are not mirrored here. Some of it is implied by rating manipulation above, but that is not a substitute.
• Section-level deep links — Google's pages use expandable sections whose anchors are unstable, so the links above point at the article rather than the individual section. Find the section by its heading.

Revision log

Date	Reviewed by	Change
2026-08-28	Initial draft	Mirrored Representing your business and the photos, videos & posts content policy section by section. Created after the chat agent advised putting a phone number in a Google Post — advice that contradicts the posts content policy.
2026-08-28	Initial draft	Post text is now screened for contact details in validateAiContent, closing the enforcement gap this document recorded. Unattended posts are held for review; interactive posts are not refused.
2026-08-28	Initial draft	Added Part 3, mirroring Prohibited and restricted content. Closes the largest gap in the first draft, and supplies the broader rule the phone-number prohibition sits inside: Advertising & solicitation also bars email addresses, social links and outbound URLs.

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Next: Content Policy & Suspension Risk