Field guide

Published October 7, 2026|7 min read

Google Maps says your listing is your identity, not an ad

Google rewrote the Advertising & solicitation section of its Maps prohibited content policy. Contributions should "define a business's permanent identity," and merchants now get their own list: no time-bound promotions, pricing, or direct calls-to-action in the listing, and no unrelated contact details or links in posts. Here is what changed, what Google did not say, and a one-sitting listing cleanup.

By James Brady

Chief AI Officer, Product & AI Operations

Google Business ProfileLocal SEOGoogle MapsGEO

A lot of local listings read like a flyer. "Spring special, call now." A price in the description. A link to a booking app nobody asked for. Google just drew a cleaner line between the listing and the ad.

Google's Maps user-contributed content policy (the "Prohibited & restricted content" page in Business Profile Help) now opens its Advertising & solicitation section like this:

"Contributions to Google Maps should reflect genuine experiences or define a business's permanent identity. This helps users discover listings and ensures the platform remains reliable rather than a marketplace. Therefore, don't post content for advertising or solicitation purposes."

Then, for the first time on that page, it splits the rules into "For users" and "For merchants." The merchant part:

"In the listing: Promotional or commercial content that contains any of the following: Time-bound promotions, pricing, or direct calls-to-action. In posts: Email addresses, phone numbers, social media links, or links to other websites in your posts that are not related to your business. Offers and updates that may be seen as promotional or commercial content are otherwise permitted in posts."

Source: Google Business Profile Help, Prohibited & restricted content (HTTP 200 this fire).

The short version

The listing is identity. Google's words: contributions should "define a business's permanent identity." The platform should stay "reliable rather than a marketplace."
Listing: no promos, prices, or calls-to-action. Time-bound promotions, pricing, and direct calls-to-action are named as prohibited merchant content in the listing.
Posts: offers are fine, stray contact details are not. Offers and updates are "otherwise permitted in posts." Unrelated emails, phone numbers, social links, and outside links are not.
Not announced. No Google blog post or changelog. A local SEO practitioner spotted the rewrite; trade press picked it up October 6.
Operator move. One sitting this week: strip promos and prices out of the profile fields, move them into an Offer post, and make sure your website says the same permanent facts your profile does.

What changed, and when

Google did not announce this. Business Profile Help pages carry no "last updated" stamp, and the Internet Archive was offline when we checked this morning, so we can't date the edit ourselves.

What the public record shows:

Local SEO practitioner Hiroko Imai posted before-and-after screenshots on LinkedIn on October 3, 2026 (US Mountain time), describing it as Google revising the "Advertising & solicitation" section to separate the rules for regular users from the rules for businesses.
Search Engine Roundtable covered it on October 6, 2026.
The live Google page, opened October 7, carries the wording quoted above.

None of this is brand new. It's now in one place.

The new section mostly pulls together rules Google already had on other Business Profile pages. That matters, because it tells you which way Google is leaning.

Business description. Google's Guidelines for representing your business on Google already said the description must not "Focus on special promotions, prices, and offer sales," with a percent-off sale and a priced "best bagels in town" line as its examples. It also says: "No links of any type are allowed."
Business name. The same guidelines say the name "should reflect your business's real-world name" and list marketing taglines, store codes, and hours ("Open 24 hours") as things the name must not include.
Posts and contact info. Google's photos, videos & posts content policy says it "may remove posts with unverified contact information," including "phone numbers, email addresses, and social media handles," and suggests a Call now button instead, which "uses your verified Business Profile phone number."
Posts are where offers go. Google's Create & manage posts page says posts are for promoting "your sales, specials, events, news, and offers." An Offer post "requires a title, dates, and time" and "automatically includes a 'View Offer' button."

So the shape is consistent: permanent facts in the profile, time-bound selling in posts, and contact routes that Google can verify.

Why this matters past the map pin

Google's own guide to AI features and your website lists, among its best practices for AI Overviews and AI Mode, "Checking that your Merchant Center and Business Profile information is up-to-date." And Google's local ranking help page says "Businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results."

A listing stuffed with a September promo is neither permanent nor accurate by October. When an answer engine tries to describe what you are, it needs facts that stay true: what you do, where, for whom, when you're open. Cloud agents cite who they can see, and they see the version of you that doesn't expire.

The one-sitting listing cleanup (this week)

Read your business name out loud. If it has a tagline, a city keyword you don't use on your sign, a store code, or "Open 24/7," it doesn't match Google's name rules. Fix it to the real-world name.
Strip the description. Remove any sale, price, percent-off, "limited time," "call today," or link. Replace it with services, who you serve, service area, and a line of history. That is what Google says the field is for.
Move the promo into an Offer post. Offer posts have dates built in, so the deal expires on its own instead of rotting in your profile.
Clean up post contact details. No personal emails, extra phone numbers, or social handles typed into post text. Use the Call now or action button, which uses your verified details.
Check links in posts. Every link should go to your own site or a booking/order page for this business. Google's new line names "links to other websites in your posts that are not related to your business."
Make the website agree. Name, address, phone, hours, and service list on your site should match the profile word for word where it counts. Two sources saying the same permanent thing is what a system can verify.
Screenshot before and after. That's your proof the fix shipped. It's also your record if Google ever rejects an edit.

What this is not

Not a ban on promoting. Google says offers and updates "are otherwise permitted in posts." The change is about where promotions live.
Not an announced update. No Search Status Dashboard incident, no Google blog post. Don't expect a ranking change from a policy rewrite, and don't panic-edit your whole profile in one sitting.
Not a reason to delete your phone number. Your verified phone number belongs in the profile's phone field. The rule is about unverified or unrelated contact details pasted into posts.

What this means for a New Reward operator

A clean listing is a fix you can ship and prove in one sitting: the tagline is gone, the description describes the business, the promo lives in a dated post, the website matches. That is execution. Checking your map rank every morning to see if Google "noticed" is monitoring, and monitoring is not execution.

If you want to see what Google and AI answer engines can currently find about your business, start with a free AI visibility scan, then read why your business isn't showing up on Google Maps.

Honesty block

Google did not announce this change, publish a date for it, or describe it as a ranking or enforcement update. Our timing comes from a practitioner's October 3 LinkedIn post and an October 6 trade report, not from Google.
Google did not define exactly which fields count as "the listing." We read it as the profile itself (name, description, and similar fields) because the same page contrasts it with "posts." That reading is ours.
Google did not say how it enforces the new merchant list: whether edits are rejected, content is removed, or profiles are suspended.
Google did not connect this policy change to AI Overviews or AI Mode. The AI-features page asks for up-to-date Business Profile information; linking the two is New Reward's operating view, not a Google statement.
OpenAI, Microsoft/Bing, Apple, and Perplexity did not publish anything about this in pages opened for this piece.
Hotels have stricter rules already: Google's posts policy says hotels "can't create 'offer' posts." Check your own category's rules.
Nothing here guarantees rankings or citations. No one can honestly promise AI will mention you.
No invented caps, rates, or before-and-after numbers.

Related New Reward pages (live, 200 this fire)

FAQ

Common questions

Can I still run promotions on my Google Business Profile?

Yes, in posts. Google's policy says offers and updates "are otherwise permitted in posts," and Offer posts have their own dates and a "View Offer" button. Keep promotions out of the business name and description.

Can I put my phone number in a post?

Google's posts policy says it may remove posts with unverified contact information and suggests a Call now button, which uses your verified profile phone number. Use the button.

Will this hurt my ranking?

Google hasn't said. Its local ranking page says complete and accurate information makes a profile more likely to show up. A description full of expired promos is the opposite of accurate, so cleaning it up is low-risk either way.