Your
business
profile.

Who is eligible at all

The threshold is in-person contact, and it is stated simply: “If your business either has a physical location that customers can visit, or travels to customers where they are, you can create a Business Profile on Google.”

Those are the two shapes. A location people come to, or a business that goes to them. Everything else in these rules follows from which of the two you are, and the common failures all involve claiming the first while actually being the second, or being neither.

The address rules, in the platform’s own words

This is where most breaches live, and none of it is ambiguous. Read on 12 October 2026:

• “P.O. boxes or mailboxes located at remote locations aren’t acceptable.”
• “If your business rents a physical mailing address but doesn’t operate out of that location, also known as a virtual office, that location isn’t eligible for a Business Profile.”
• Co-working space is not automatically eligible either: an office there does not qualify “unless that office maintains clear signage, receives customers at the location during business hours, and is staffed during business hours by your business staff.”
• “Businesses showing their address on Google should maintain permanent fixed signage of their business name at the address.”

The co-working condition is three requirements joined by “and”, not a menu. Signage, customers received there, and your own staff present during the hours you publish.

If you go to customers

Service-area businesses “should have one profile for the central office or location with a designated service area”. That means one profile, not one for every town served.

And the area has a stated outer limit: the boundaries “shouldn’t extend farther than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based.” That is a useful number to know before paying anyone to list you across half a state.

Why the downside is asymmetric

Every one of the shortcuts above is attractive for the same reason: it appears to buy presence in a market you are not physically in. The reason to decline is not primarily ethical, it is arithmetic. The upside is a ranking in one area you do not serve well. The stated downside is losing the profile.

For most small businesses the profile is the single largest source of calls. Risking all of it for a marginal position in a town two hours away is a bad trade on its own terms, before anyone reaches for an argument about honesty.

The parts that are free and get neglected

Given how much weight this asset carries, it needs remarkably little maintenance. Keep regular and holiday hours current. Choose the narrowest accurate primary category, because broader categories often perform worse. Make sure your signage matches the name you publish.

None of that costs anything or requires a specialist. It is simply nobody’s job, which is why on most profiles it is a year out of date.