What are the latest Google Business Profile changes?
The main changes are these: the public Q&A section has been retired, posts can now be scheduled and set to repeat, Google is testing posts higher up the profile, chat runs through WhatsApp or text message, and Google is trialling photo ID as another way to verify a business. None needs panic. Most need one small job.
The Q&A box is gone, so your answers need a new home
For years, anyone could ask a question on your profile and anyone could answer it, including people who had never been near your business. Google switched off the tools behind that feature on 3 November 2025, and the public questions box has been fading from profiles since.
Google's direction is AI answers instead. Ask Maps, launched in March for the US and India first, lets people ask Google Maps a question in plain words and get a written answer back, generated by Google's Gemini AI. There's no thread for you to moderate and no answer for you to pin to the top.
So the questions you used to answer on the profile need to live somewhere Google, and customers, can read them. That means a proper FAQ on your website, clear service descriptions on your profile, the right attributes ticked, and opening hours that are actually right. A useful rule: if customers ask the same thing on the phone every week, that answer belongs in writing on your site. Our plain-English guide to AI SEO covers why clear, checkable information matters more now that AI is doing the summarising.
Posts can be scheduled, and may be moving up the page
Google's own help page now lets you switch on "Schedule this post" and set a post to repeat weekly, monthly or on a custom schedule. Two details from the same page are worth knowing. Posts older than six months are archived unless they have a date range. And a post with a phone number in the description might be rejected if Google can't connect that number to your business, so leave the number on your profile, not in the post.
Separately, Google appears to be testing posts in a higher spot on the profile. Search Engine Roundtable reported it on 19 October, with posts moving up and back down every few days. It's a test, not a confirmed change. Google doesn't promise that posting improves your rankings either, so treat posts as a shop window rather than a ranking trick. One honest post a month, such as a recent job, a seasonal offer or a new service, keeps the profile looking lived-in, and scheduling means it doesn't depend on you remembering on a busy Tuesday.
Chat now means WhatsApp or text
Verified businesses can add a WhatsApp or text message option to their contact details, so customers can message you straight from Search or Maps. Google says it's available in select regions, so you may or may not see it yet. One quirk: if you add both, only the text option shows.
Only switch it on if someone will actually reply, and reply quickly. A chat button that sits unanswered for two days does more harm than having no button at all. Use a business number rather than a personal mobile you might change, and make sure whoever picks it up knows your prices and availability.
Verification is getting more thorough
Google's verification options currently include phone or text, email, a live video call and post. Search Engine Roundtable reported on 20 October that some businesses are now being offered another route in testing: uploading a photo of government ID.
The lesson isn't about ID. It's ownership. It's easy to lose track of which Google account owns your profile: a former employee's, a previous web designer's, an old Gmail address nobody can get into. If verification is ever re-triggered, that becomes a real headache. Make sure the profile is owned by a business account you control, add a second trusted manager so you're never locked out, and give any agency manager access rather than ownership. Your profile should be in your name, full stop.
A ten-minute checklist
- Check who owns the profile and who has manager access. Remove anyone who shouldn't be there.
- Move your most common customer questions into an FAQ on your website.
- Check your services, attributes, hours, phone number and website link all match your site.
- Schedule one useful post a month, without a phone number in the text.
- Decide whether you can genuinely staff WhatsApp or text chat before switching it on.
- Reply to recent reviews, good and bad, briefly and politely.
If you want the bigger picture on ranking in the local three-pack, our guide to getting your Leeds business into Google's map pack walks through the fundamentals, which haven't changed: relevance, distance and prominence.
The profile and the website do different jobs. The profile wins the glance; the website wins the enquiry. Google keeps changing the first, but the second is the one you fully own. We set up and look after Google Business Profiles as part of our local SEO for Leeds businesses, and build the website it points to, with the profile in your name from day one.