On September 16 I did something I tell every contractor to do and had never done for my own business. I pulled up DJH & Co on Google Maps the way a stranger would, opened the Business Profile manager next to it, and compared the two line by line.

It was embarrassing. According to the public listing, my marketing business was a media company that also teaches tennis.

What the public listing said

Here is exactly what the public page showed that day:

The whole thing looked auto-generated and unattended. That is the honest description, because that is what it was.

Why the two views did not match

Two different things were going on, and it helps to separate them.

The first is that Google does not only publish what the owner types. Its own help page says it gathers information from different sources, like user reports and licensed content, and can update a profile when those sources suggest something is wrong or out of date. When Google suggests an update, the owner gets four days to accept or reject it, and if nobody responds, Google may publish it anyway when other public information supports it.1 I cannot tell you which source put "Tennis instructor" on my listing. I can tell you that on a profile nobody is watching, other people's guesses win by default.

The second is lag. Some things the manager had right, like the women-owned attribute and the hidden address, were still showing the old way in public. The manager is what you told Google. The public page is what Google is currently showing. They are not the same thing, and you only find the gap by looking at both.

The manager is what you told Google. The public page is what your customer sees. Check both.

What we changed on September 16

Google marked the edit as pending review. Its help page says edits usually take up to 10 minutes to review, sometimes up to 30 days, and that Google might not approve a change if it cannot confirm it is accurate.2

What it showed on October 1

I checked again today, fifteen days later, from a logged-out browser. The public card still says Media company. It also says closed, opens 9 AM Friday. Today is a Thursday, so the old closed-Monday-through-Thursday schedule is still what a customer sees. The hours were not on the September 16 list, and the public card has not changed them.

So the edit was made, and the public page has not caught up. That is still inside the 30 days Google gives itself, so it is not a failure yet. It is a reminder that hitting Save is not the end of the job. You go back and look.

What I would do differently

Audit it on day one. I spent the summer on the website, the ads and the follow-up texts, and never looked at the one listing that comes up when somebody searches the business name. For a contractor it matters even more than it did for me, because the map is where a homeowner picks who to call.

Screenshot the public page before touching anything. Then you have a before, and you can tell the difference between "my edit was rejected" and "my edit has not published yet."

Fix everything in one pass. I fixed the categories and the service area and left the hours for later. Later means a customer looking at the listing on a weekday morning still sees closed.

What to check on your own listing

Do this on your phone, logged out or in a private window, so you see what a customer sees. Then open the manager and compare, field by field.

  1. Primary category. Google says to pick the category that best describes the business and to choose a specific one over a general one. Its own example is "Nail salon" instead of "Salon." It also says categories affect your local ranking.3 For a plumber that means Plumber, not a general contractor category. For a pressure washing business, the pressure washing category, not a general cleaning one.
  2. Every additional category. If you do not recognize one, remove it. Google's guidelines say to use as few categories as possible, the ones that finish the sentence "This business IS a."4
  3. The address and the pin. If you run the business from home and drive to customers, Google's guidelines say to clear the address. Their own example is a plumber working from a residential address.4 If the manager says hidden and the public page still shows it, keep a screenshot and check again in a few days.
  4. The service area. The towns you actually drive to. Not the whole country, which is what ours said. Here is the longer version on setting service areas.
  5. Hours. Google asks for your regular customer-facing hours.4 If you answer the phone Monday through Friday, the listing should not say closed Monday through Thursday.
  6. Attributes. Things like women-owned or veteran-owned live in the attributes section, and each one can be turned on or off.5 Make sure the public page says what is true.
  7. Photos. Real jobs, your truck, the crew from behind. If there is nothing you uploaded, the listing is not doing any work for you.
  8. Google's suggested updates. Watch for the notices and answer them inside the four days.1

Then check the public page again a week later, and again at 30 days.

Why a contractor should care more than I do

A handyman whose profile carries somebody else's category is competing for the wrong searches, since Google says categories feed local ranking. One that shows closed on a weekday hands the call to the next name on the map. None of this costs money to fix. It costs twenty minutes and the habit of looking.

The profile also has to agree with the website behind it. If the listing says you work in Sarasota and Bradenton, the site should have real pages about those places, and a single page cannot carry that. It is why every area we build for gets its own page on the locations hub. Once the profile is right and people find it, steady reviews are what keep you there.

Checking and maintaining the profile is part of what I set up for every client, along with the website, the review requests and the missed-call text-back. $297 a month, no contract, and the site is built before you pay. If you would rather see it explained first, the short version is here. And if you look at your own listing tonight and find a tennis instructor, you are not the only one.

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  1. 1. Google Business Profile Help, Understand Google updates on your Business Profile: info gathered from user reports and licensed content, and the 4-day window to respond. https://support.google.com/business/answer/3480441
  2. 2. Google Business Profile Help, Understand what happens to your Business Profile edits: review times and why edits may not be approved. https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038311
  3. 3. Google Business Profile Help, Manage your business category: primary and additional categories. https://support.google.com/business/answer/7249669
  4. 4. Google Business Profile Help, Guidelines for representing your business on Google: categories, hidden addresses for service-area businesses, and hours. https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177
  5. 5. Google Business Profile Help, Manage your business attributes, including business identity attributes. https://support.google.com/business/answer/9049526