Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business): the local SEO asset almost nobody maintains

Google Business Profile —formerly called Google My Business— is the listing a business manages within Google's ecosystem to appear in local searches, in Google Maps, and in the well-known local pack (the three map-based options that show up when you search "X near me" or "X in [city]").

There are two uncomfortable truths about this tool that almost no article mentions. The first is that Google renamed it in November 2021 and the dedicated mobile app was discontinued in 2022. Today it's managed directly from Search and Maps. But much of the content in circulation —including what shows up in Google's top results— still talks as if nothing had changed. The second truth is that practically every local business has a profile created, but very few keep it alive. That difference between creating and maintaining is what decides real visibility.

What changed in 2021-2022 (and why it matters)

The rebrand wasn't just a name change. It came with several operational shifts:

• Goodbye to the dedicated mobile app. Management migrated to Google Search itself and to Google Maps. You search for your business while logged in and the integrated management options appear.
• Advanced features centralized in Search/Maps, not in a separate tool. Some simple features (messaging, quick editing) moved, and others were discontinued.
• More weight on real-usage signals, less on declared data. The photos users upload, the questions asked on the profile, and actual visits weigh more than the owner's declarations.
• Growing emphasis on responding to reviews as a visible factor. A profile with unanswered reviews quickly stands out from one that manages them actively.

If what you know about Google Business Profile you learned before 2022, it's worth checking up-to-date sources — much of the typical "open the app and edit" workflow no longer applies.

Why it matters: the local pack

The local pack is the set of three map-based results Google shows above the organic results in searches with local intent. That position is valuable for two reasons:

• It appears above the organic results, which makes it prime visual real estate. People look at it before scrolling down.
• It captures a significant share of the clicks in local searches — more than half of searches with local intent end up interacting with the local pack rather than with organic results.

A business without a well-optimized profile doesn't appear in the local pack. And since Google determines local intent automatically —sometimes even without the user typing "near me"—, ignoring the profile is ignoring a huge fraction of potential traffic. More on general ranking, though the local pack's dynamics are governed by their own factors.

The three ranking factors Google states

Unlike traditional SEO, where Google is opaque about its factors, in local SEO the official support document does list them. There are three:

1. Relevance

How well your profile matches what the user is searching for. It's determined by the primary business category, the secondary categories, the listed services, and the completeness of the profile's information. A profile with an incomplete category or undetailed services loses here.

2. Distance

How far your business is from the user searching (or from the explicitly searched location). This can't be manipulated directly, but it can be influenced through coverage — a business that serves a wide area should declare it correctly; a physical one should have its exact address verified.

3. Prominence

The most interesting signal: how much overall recognition the business has. It combines online factors (reviews, mentions, backlinks to the website, average rating) and offline ones (it's an established, well-known business with a presence in directories). It's the least manipulable lever and the most decisive in competitive markets.

Knowing these three factors helps explain why a profile with reviews, updated photos, and the correct category consistently outperforms an otherwise identical one with no activity.

What a truly complete profile includes

Most profiles have the basics (name, address, phone — the so-called NAP) and nothing more. A profile used to 80% of its potential also includes:

• A precise primary category (not generic).
• Secondary categories covering real but related services.
• Attributes specific to the business: accessibility, payment methods, service options (delivery, pickup, etc.), wifi, parking. Each one is a filter Google uses.
• Complete hours, including holidays and exceptions.
• Services or products listed with a description and price where applicable.
• Photos uploaded regularly — interior, exterior, team, products. The most recent photos usually weigh more than older ones.
• Posts with news, offers, events. Most profiles don't use them, which makes them a real differentiator.
• Q&A monitored and answered — users ask questions; the answers (or silences) are visible.
• An active messaging section if the business can respond in hours, not days.
• Direct links to bookings, appointments, orders if the sector applies.

Each of these fields is a relevance and prominence signal. A profile that only fills in three or four leaves six or seven opportunities on the table.

The difference between setting it up and maintaining it

Here's the part that separates visible businesses from invisible ones. A profile set up once and abandoned degrades quickly:

• Photos become outdated.
• Hours change over time and nobody updates them.
• Reviews appear without a response.
• Questions pile up unanswered.
• Posts disappear entirely.
• The listed services no longer reflect the real offering.

A profile maintained as a weekly discipline —new photos, responses to every review, a post at least every two weeks, a review of hours and services— consistently outperforms the first one, even when both start from the same baseline. The difference isn't strategic; it's operational.

That's the reason businesses with similar budgets reach radically different positions: one treats the profile as a setup task, the other as a living asset.

Common mistakes

• Keyword stuffing in the name. Putting "Mario's Pizzeria - best pizza downtown Madrid" instead of "Mario's Pizzeria" is a serious mistake. Google detects it and penalizes it.
• Multiple profiles for the same location. When they've been created by different people or processes, Google gets confused and suspends them. You have to consolidate.
• A poorly chosen primary category. A café shouldn't have restaurant as its main category; it loses relevance for its specific search.
• Fake or bought reviews. Detectable, penalizable, and a reputational risk when discovered.
• Not responding to negative reviews. A negative review with a professional response counts less against you than one without a response. Silence is read worse than the problem itself.
• Photos uploaded once and never again. Google gives more weight to recent activity. Three photos a month beat thirty from two years ago.
• Information out of sync with the website. If the hours on the profile don't match those on your website, Google doubts which to believe and lowers trust in both.

Multi-location: the operational reality

For companies with several locations, each one needs its own profile — but coordinated as a system. Here, problems appear that a single-location owner never sees:

• Brand consistency with local permissions (hours and services can vary; the name and identity can't).
• Review responses distributed across local managers but with a consistent tone.
• Photo production per location without it becoming unsustainable.
• Posts that combine global campaigns with local activations.
• Comparable metrics per location — which location performs best and why.

Without operational discipline, multi-location turns into chaos where three locations do it well, eight do it mediocrely, and two do it badly. The average pulls downward.

Reviews: an SEO signal, not just PR

Reviews deserve their own paragraph because most businesses treat them as PR (what people say about me) when they're a direct SEO signal:

• Quantity influences prominence.
• Recency matters: a profile with many old reviews weighs less than one with a continuous flow.
• Response speed is an observable signal.
• Response quality —not just "thanks," but a substantive answer, especially on negative reviews— builds public credibility.
• The content of the reviews sometimes includes keywords the profile didn't have explicitly (e.g., someone mentions "nice terrace" and that helps you appear in searches with that word).

A coherent review strategy isn't limited to asking for them; it includes systematic responses and learning from the feedback that repeats.

Google Business Profile and creative operations

Keeping a Google Business Profile alive —and, at scale, several— is continuous content production, not technical setup. New photos monthly, posts every two weeks, review responses in hours, monitored Q&A, updated services when they change. Without operational discipline, all of that falls apart the first busy month.

That's why this tool fits into the creative operations cluster: it requires an editorial calendar specific to local profiles (what to post and when), coordinated content production (photos, post copy, template responses to frequent reviews), and creative KPIs that measure not just ranking but also review response rate and profile freshness.

At Polimake that logic lives across three surfaces of the same product: Studio to coordinate the cadence of posts, photos, and responses per location; Studio to produce photos, posts, and response templates with a consistent brand system; Media as the repository where per-location photos, review templates, a bank of frequent Q&A, and approved copy are accessible so the local team doesn't have to improvise every time.

When Google Business Profile is NOT a priority

Not every business gains by investing here:

• B2B without in-person service. If the customer never visits you, the profile has low impact. Better to invest in traditional organic SEO.
• Pure digital brands with no physical location or local service.
• Companies in saturated markets without clear local differentiation, where competing in the local pack against established chains requires disproportionate investment.

For everything else —especially any business with customers who travel or who have a local alternative— a well-maintained Google Business Profile is probably the best SEO investment in terms of time-to-result ratio.

Related concepts

• Content specifications for Google Business
• Why I should use Google Business Profile
• What SEO means
• How long it takes a blog to rank with SEO
• General SEO tips
• Google Analytics

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This piece is part of the Polimake glossary and the cluster on creative operations. If you manage local SEO for a brand with a physical or multi-location presence, also read editorial calendar and content production.