Updates · October 12, 2026
Google just changed what you’re allowed to write on your own Business Profile
Quick answer
Google quietly rewrote the advertising-and-solicitation section of its Maps and Business Profile prohibited content policy, spotted via before-and-after screenshots posted to LinkedIn on October 6, 2026. The listing description can no longer carry promotional or commercial content, specifically time-bound promotions, pricing, or a direct call-to-action. Posts are governed separately: they still allow offers and updates, but can no longer include an email address, phone number, social media link, or a link to a site unrelated to the business. Google gave no enforcement date and did not say whether text already published gets stripped automatically. This lands three weeks after Google started rejecting posts for unverified contact information and started auto-publishing other people’s suggested edits to your profile if you do not respond within four days, so the honest read is a business owner has less room to write freely in their own listing and less time to catch someone else’s edit to it.
Not sure your own listing is still compliant?A free 15-minute check, not a pitch.
Book a free assessmentA running note on what local business owners are actually posting about this week, answered with our own frameworks and sourced where it counts.
What changed
On October 6, 2026, Search Engine Roundtable reported that Google had updated the advertising and solicitation section of its Maps and Business Profile prohibited content policy. INDEPENDENT RESEARCH The change was first spotted by marketing consultant Hiroko Imai, who posted side-by-side before-and-after screenshots of the policy text on LinkedIn. The new wording splits the rules by surface: a business listing cannot carry promotional or commercial content that includes time-bound promotions, pricing, or a direct call-to-action, while a Post can still include offers and updates, just not an email address, phone number, social media link, or a link to an unrelated site. GOOGLE DOCUMENTED Relevant Audience, writing the same week, confirmed the same before-and-after wording independently and noted what Google left out: no enforcement date, no count of affected listings, and no statement on whether text already published in a business description gets removed automatically. INDEPENDENT RESEARCH
What’s actually prohibited now, field by field
The split matters because the same sentence can be fine in one place on a profile and a violation in another. GOOGLE DOCUMENTED
- Business description: no pricing. “Starting at $89” or any specific dollar figure is promotional content under the new wording.
- Business description: no time-bound offers. “20% off through October” or any deal tied to a date range is now out of the description.
- Business description: no direct calls-to-action. “Call now,” “book today,” and similar phrasing belong on a Post or a button, not in the permanent description.
- Posts: no phone numbers. Google’s own help documentation says to attach a “Call now” button instead, tied to the verified profile number.
- Posts: no email addresses or social media links. Even a business’s own real handle is prohibited inside the body of a Post.
- Posts: no links to unrelated sites. A link has to point back to something that is actually the business’s own, not a partner page, a review platform, or an affiliate link.
- Posts: offers and updates are still allowed. This is the one place promotional content has a home; it just cannot carry the prohibited contact details inside the post text itself.
| Content type | Business description | Posts |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing or dollar figures | Prohibited (new, October 2026) | Allowed, as part of an offer |
| Time-bound promotions | Prohibited (new, October 2026) | Allowed, as part of an offer |
| Direct calls-to-action ("call now") | Prohibited (new, October 2026) | Use the attached button, not post text |
| Phone number in the text | Not applicable | Prohibited since September 2026 enforcement |
| Email address or social link | Not applicable | Prohibited (new, October 2026) |
| General offers and updates | Not the right field for this | Still the intended use of Posts |
What to do about it this week
- Reread your own business description today. Pull any dollar figure, any date-bound deal, and any “call now” style phrasing out of it. Describe what the business is and who it serves instead, the way Google’s own description guidance has always recommended.
- Move pricing and offers into Posts, not the description. Posts are still the right field for a promotion. The description is now meant to describe the business’s permanent identity, not sell this month’s deal.
- Strip phone numbers, emails, and social links out of Post text. Use the profile’s verified phone number through the attached “Call now” button, and link out only to the business’s own site or booking page.
- Check your notification settings for suggested edits. With a four-day window before an unreviewed suggested edit can go live, a missed notification is no longer a minor inconvenience.
- Don’t panic-edit everything at once. Google’s own documentation on profile edits says processing can take anywhere from about 10 minutes to up to 30 days; fix what is actually in violation, not every field on the profile, to avoid putting compliant information into unnecessary review.
Sources
- Search Engine Roundtable, “Updated Google Maps Policy: What Merchants Can’t Post In Listings Or Posts”, October 6, 2026: the policy change, Hiroko Imai’s before-and-after screenshots, and the exact new wording for listings versus Posts.
- Relevant Audience, “Google Business Profile policy now bans time-bound promotions and pricing in listings”, October 2026: independent confirmation of the same wording, and the note that Google gave no enforcement date or removal timeline.
- Search Engine Roundtable, “Google Posts Cracks Down On Unverified Contact Information”, September 25, 2026: the earlier enforcement change restricting phone numbers and unverified contact details in Posts.
- Search Engine Roundtable, “Google Business Profiles Gives You Four Days To Reject User Edits”, September 2026: the suggested-edits auto-publish window.
- Local Search Forum, “My Google My Posts not approving from past 1 month”, member thread: the real business owner report of ongoing post rejections, with other members confirming the same symptom.
- Google Business Profile Help, Understand what happens to your Business Profile edits, accessed 2026-10: edit review timelines, from about 10 minutes up to 30 days.
Community figures are quoted from the linked thread and reflect what the poster reported, not a measured outcome for any one business. The scope of enforcement, how strictly or how quickly existing descriptions get flagged, is not independently verifiable beyond what has been publicly reported as of this writing, and this note will be updated if Google issues its own statement.