Google Business Profile: new content rules and 4 days for edits
In brief
- On October 6, 2026 Google updated its content rules for Maps: business information cannot carry time-limited promotions, prices or calls to action.
- Posts cannot give a phone number, an email address or social media links. The offer itself is fine.
- You get 4 days to reject an edit submitted by a user. After that, Google can publish it for you.
- Since September 30, Maps has shown a sign-in screen before the full list of reviews and before leaving a rating.
Google Business Profile is a free listing for your business in Search and on Maps. The rules for what you may write in it have just changed. In September and October 2026 Google tightened three screws: promotional content in business information, the time you have to react to someone else's edit, and access to reviews.
New content rules in Google Business Profile
On October 6 Google rewrote the section on advertising and solicitation in the Maps rules. The point is this: business information should describe what the business permanently is, not what it has on sale this week. So time-limited campaigns, prices and direct calls to action along the lines of “call now” are out of the name and the description.
The second half of the change covers posts on the profile. An offer or a piece of news is allowed there, but with no email address, no phone number, no links to Facebook or Instagram and no links to pages unrelated to the business. Plenty of owners do exactly the opposite: they drop “-20% until Friday” into the business description and give out their cell number in a post. After this update, both moves are outside the rules. Watching details like these is part of the daily work of local SEO and listing management.
If you are setting up a business listing from scratch, first work through the guide how to set up a Google Business Profile step by step, and then come back to this list of changes.
| Change | Date | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Advertising and solicitation rules | 6.10.2026 | Review your name, description and posts |
| 4 days for someone else's edit | 23.09.2026 | Read the emails from Google |
| Sign-in for reviews | 30.09.2026 | Give the customer a ready link |
| WhatsApp button in the panel | 7.10.2026 | Add it if you reply |
Four days for someone else's edit
Any Maps user can submit a correction to your business information: different hours, a different address, a different category, sometimes “permanently closed”. Google clarified in its help center that once you are notified you get 4 days to accept or reject the submission. No reaction does not mean nothing will happen: if other public data confirms the change, your own website for example, Google can publish it.
79 million edits to business information Google blocked in 2025
13 million fake business profiles removed in the same period
4 days that's how long you get to reject a submitted correction
The first two numbers come from Google itself, in its summary of protecting businesses on Maps from April 16, 2026. At that scale the filter is not perfect, which is why Google sends emails asking you to check the more important corrections. If those emails land at an address nobody opens, the four-day window closes without you.
Example
A hair salon, one location, open on Saturdays. Someone submits a correction: Saturday as a closed day. The owner is away on vacation, the submission goes through after four days and Maps shows the wrong information. With 9 appointments on a Saturday and an average bill of PLN 110, one such Saturday is PLN 990 in revenue, and the error stays until somebody finally notices it. This is a sample calculation, not data from a study.
Reviews and contact: what changed on Maps
Sign-in before reading reviews
Since September 30, Maps has been asking people to sign in to a Google account when they want to expand the full list of reviews, sort it or add a review of their own. For you that is one more click between “I want to say something nice” and a posted rating. The simplest move is to give the customer Google review QR code at the register, because the phone in their hand is usually signed in already.
A pause after a sudden spike in reviews
Since September 22, owners have been getting emails from Google about a detected spike in reviews treated as spam. When that happens, new ratings and reviews are held back for a few days, until the system decides the risk has passed. The trouble is that the mechanism does not tell an attack apart from your own campaign, so sending review requests to a hundred customers on a single Monday can end in silence instead of twenty new ratings.
Note
Spread review collection over weeks, a few requests a day. Once the pause kicks in, honest reviews from that period won't go live either, and Google publishes neither the threshold nor the exact length of the block.
A WhatsApp button next to the phone
On October 7 a WhatsApp button started showing up in the business panel in Search, sometimes next to the call, directions and website buttons, sometimes in place of chat. You add the WhatsApp number yourself when editing the profile, in the contact section. Add it only if someone on your side really does reply during the day, because an unanswered message does more harm than no button at all.
Three things to do today
- Read the name and the description cold. Cut the percentages, the prices, the deadlines and the “call now”. In the name field leave the company name, with no promo add-ons. That is fifteen minutes of work, and since October 6 the Maps content rules say so outright.
- Check who reads the emails from Google. Set an address that somebody opens every day, and go through the backlog of correction notifications. The four-day window runs even when nobody signs in.
- Plan reviews across four weeks, not one day. A few requests a day, a QR code at the register, a reminder when you hand the goods over. The rest of the ranking work is in a separate post on what really moves a business up on Maps.
What we still do not know
Google has not given a date from which it will start enforcing the new content rules, and it has not said whether old promotions in descriptions will be removed automatically. The emails about review spikes and the sign-in before reading reviews have no official documentation at all. We know them only from what owners and the industry have observed. Since September 17 there have also been tests showing the business panel in a form similar to an AI answer, but for now that is a test, not a change rolled out to everyone.
If you would rather have somebody go through your profile together with you, order a free visibility audit or call 511 608 362 (Mon to Fri, 10 am to 6 pm).
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to remove prices from my business description on Maps?
Yes, the October 6 rules list prices, time-limited promotions and direct calls to action as content that does not belong in business information. Keep your price list on your website and link to it from your profile.
What happens if I don't reject a correction within four days?
Google can publish the change without your approval, as long as other publicly available information confirms it. You can undo the edit manually afterwards, but in the meantime customers see the wrong information.
Can I put a phone number in a post on my profile?
Not after the update. Posts have no room for a phone number, an email address or social media links. The number stays in the contact field, where Google shows it anyway next to the call button.
Can a customer without a Google account leave me a review?
No. Maps asks people to sign in both when adding a review and when expanding the full list, so it pays to point people to the phone they are already signed in on.
Does the WhatsApp button show up on its own?
Google has added it to some businesses without asking, but the reliable way is to set the number yourself in the contact section of your profile. If you don't handle WhatsApp, leave that field empty.
