Sauce · Google Business Profile
Google Q&A is gone. Here are 6 places your answers need to live now.
Quick answer
Google shut down the Business Profile Q&A API on November 3, 2025, while it changed how questions work. Ask Maps now answers customer questions with AI, using what it can read: your profile, your reviews and web content. You can no longer plant an answer in a Q&A box. Put each answer where Ask Maps and people can read it: your service pages, a real FAQ, your profile description and services, your review replies, and your hours.
Is your trade still open in your city?We take one client per trade, per city. The call starts with that check, not a pitch.
Book a free assessmentYou used to be able to answer the question before anyone asked.
The Q&A box sat on your Google profile. Anyone could ask a question. You could answer it. Some owners even asked and answered their own questions. It got the facts out early.
That box is going away. Google shut down the Q&A API on November 3, 2025, and said it was updating how Q&A works. BrightLocal, which tracks these changes, reports that Ask Maps has taken its place. Now Gemini writes the answer, from what it can find.
- A customer asks a question on your profile.
- You type the answer.
- Your answer sits there for the next person.
- A customer asks Ask Maps.
- Ask Maps writes an answer from your profile, reviews and web content.
- If the answer is not written down somewhere, it guesses or names someone else.
So the job changed. You are no longer answering in one box. You are making sure the answer is written down in the places it reads. Here are the six.
1. One page per service
Each service you sell gets its own page. What is included, the towns you cover, and a real price range. A “Services” page with ten bullet points answers nothing.
2. A real FAQ on your site
Ask the person who answers your phone. What ten questions do they hear most? Answer each one in two or three plain sentences on your site. Those are the questions people now type into Ask Maps.
One note. Google stopped showing FAQ rich results for most sites in 2023. Do not build an FAQ for a search trick. Build it because the answers are useful, to people and to anything that reads your page.
3. Your profile description
Google says the description should cover your services and products. It can tell your story and your history too. It must be honest. Say what you do, where, and since when. Skip the slogans.
Not sure what your profile is missing?The free Map Pack audit scores it against our 12-point checklist and scans your map coverage.
Get the free Map Pack audit4. Your profile services and products
List each real service by name. This is part of the complete info Google says helps you show up. See the profile fields nobody fills in.
5. Your review replies
Reviews are now one of the main things Ask Maps reads. Your replies sit right under them. When a customer asks about a problem, answer the facts in your reply. Keep it short and calm. Here is how to reply well.
6. Your hours, special hours included
“Are you open on the holiday Monday?” used to be a classic Q&A question. Now Ask Maps answers it from your hours. Set special hours for every holiday.
Do this today
Check your profile
If you still see old questions and answers on your profile, open them.
Copy the good answers
Paste the useful ones into a FAQ page on your website, where they will stay.
Fill the gaps
Add any question your office hears that is not answered anywhere yet.
If the answer is not written down where Google can read it, someone else’s answer gets used.
Go deeper
Pick the piece you need next
Each one goes deeper on one part of this list.
If you want a hand putting this in order, the free Map Pack audit is where we start every client, before any money changes hands.
Did Google remove Q&A from Business Profiles?
Google shut down the Business Profile Q&A API on November 3, 2025 and said it was updating how Q&A works. Industry trackers such as BrightLocal report that Ask Maps has replaced the old Q&A on profiles.
Where do Ask Maps answers come from?
Google says Ask Maps draws on information about over 300 million places, reviews from more than 500 million contributors, and web content. For your business, that means your profile, your reviews and your own website.
Should I still add an FAQ to my website?
Yes, if the answers are useful. Google limited FAQ rich results to a small set of government and health sites in 2023, so do not expect a search feature. Clear questions and answers still help customers and anything that reads your page.
Sources
- Google for Developers, Q&A API change log: the My Business Q&A API was discontinued on November 3, 2025, while Google updates “the Q&A functionality and user experience.”
- BrightLocal, Goodbye Google Q&A: It’s Time to Ask Maps: reports that Google has discontinued Q&A and replaced it with Ask Maps. Industry source.
- Google, The Keyword, How we’re reimagining Maps with Gemini (March 12, 2026): Ask Maps launch; Maps analyzes information from over 300 million places, including reviews from more than 500 million contributors.
- Google India, The Keyword, Ask anything about any place on Maps with Gemini (March 12, 2026): Ask Maps highlights “insider tips from real people and web content.”
- Google Business Profile Help, Guidelines for representing your business on Google: customer-facing hours, special hours, the business description, and businesses that should not list hours.
- Google Business Profile Help, Tips to improve your local ranking on Google: “Businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results”; relevance, distance and prominence; replying to reviews.
- Google Search Central Blog, Changes to HowTo and FAQ rich results (August 2023): FAQ rich results limited to well-known, authoritative government and health sites.
Next step
See your map before you change anything
The free Map Pack audit scans your coverage and scores your profile. One client per trade, per city. No guaranteed rankings.