Google Business Profile for restaurants: the complete guide

What a Google Business Profile is, and why it comes first

A Google Business Profile is your restaurant’s entry in Google Search and Google Maps. It holds your name, address, opening hours, photos, menu and reviews, plus the buttons to call, ask for directions or order. You create and manage it for free at business.google.com or in the Google Maps app. Until 2021 it was called Google My Business, and many people still use that name.

It is not a second website. It is where a guest judges you before they ever reach your own page. Someone types ‘pizza delivery’ or ‘lunch nearby’, sees a small map with a few places on their phone and chooses on what they take in at a glance: the photos, the rating, the distance and whether you are open right now. Your website comes afterwards, and sometimes never.

If you did not create the profile yourself, a listing probably exists anyway. Google collects details from elsewhere, and other people can suggest changes. If you do not claim it, you leave it to others to decide which hours and which phone number appear for your business. A guest standing at a locked door because an old set of hours stayed up will look for somebody else next time.

The order of this guide is the order of the work: claiming and verifying, the fields that decide whether Google shows you, menu and ordering link, photos and posts, reviews, measuring, and what to do when things go wrong. Short on time? The quickest eight steps are in local SEO for restaurants. This guide is the long version, with Google’s own rules alongside.

How Google decides which places come first

Google explains it briefly itself: local results rest mainly on three things. Relevance, distance and prominence, which is how well known a business is. The same place can come first for one search and fifth for another, because those three come out differently for every searcher.

Suppose somebody searches ‘pizza delivery’. A place with Pizza restaurant as its primary category, delivery ticked and pizzas on its menu gives Google three signs that it fits. A place that calls itself only ‘Restaurant’ and leaves the rest blank gives it none. That is the whole idea of relevance, and it is why what you fill in counts towards whether you appear.

What you cannot do is buy a place. Google writes that it is not possible to request or pay for a better position in local results. Remember that when a caller promises you the top spot. Google keeps the details of the ranking secret, so you do not know them either. You do know the three ingredients.

Ordinary SEO feeds prominence too, because links from other sites count. How to approach that side is covered in the guide to getting found in Google. This piece stays with the profile itself and follows the order of the three factors: first the fields that give relevance, then the reviews that give prominence.

Claiming and verifying, step by step

Claiming costs nothing and takes an afternoon, as long as you know what Google asks of you. Start with the account. Use a Google account that belongs to the business, not a member of staff’s private address, because whoever loses that account loses the profile.

1. Go to business.google.com and search for your restaurant. If it already appears in Google Maps, select the listing, then ‘Claim this business’ and ‘Manage now’.
2. If it is not there, create a new profile. Do not create one when one exists already, because a business may only have one.
3. Enter name, category and address and choose how guests can reach you.
4. Complete the verification Google offers you.
5. Fill in the rest of the profile in the meantime. Google reviews changes before they go live.

You do not choose how you verify. Google picks the method based on your type of business, your region and your opening hours, and sometimes asks for more than one.

The video, because Google recommends it

Google recommends the video recording when your business qualifies. You record it on your phone through your profile, and it has to be live: a pre-recorded or edited video does not count. Three things have to be in it.

• Where you are: street signs, house numbers and neighbouring businesses that show you are at this address.
• That you exist: your frontage or sign with the restaurant’s name on a fixed structure. The name has to match your profile.
• That you run the place: things only staff use, such as the till, the kitchen or the storeroom.

Film before opening or between services. Google does not want sensitive details, private information or other people’s faces on screen, so a full dining room is out. On your phone you open your profile, tap the verify option, choose the business video, allow access to location, camera and microphone and start recording. If Google turns the video down, it shows you why. You then record a new one that includes everything shown before, plus what was missing.

If you choose the postcard, request one code only. A new request makes the first one expire and costs you time.

A kitchen that only delivers may qualify for a profile under conditions, while a business that exists only online does not. Read those conditions in Google’s guidelines before you start. If the profile already belongs to somebody else, such as a former owner or an agency, read the section on duplicate profiles further on.

Filling in the basics: name, address, phone and website

First the fields every restaurant has. They look dull, but this is where most mistakes happen.

The temptation is greatest with the name, because bending the rules looks rewarding. Suppose your restaurant is called Trattoria Esempio and you enter ‘Trattoria Esempio | Best Pizza Delivery Rotterdam’. Google names exactly that as a mistake: keywords, product descriptions and place names do not belong in the name. What that can cost you is in the section on suspension. Use the name as it appears on your frontage and let the other fields do the rest.

Changing a name or moving an address can trigger a new verification. If you move, update the existing profile rather than making a new one, or you end up with a duplicate.

Put a number in the phone field that is answered during opening hours, even if that is your own mobile. A guest who calls and gets nobody orders from the place next door.

You show your address when guests come to you. A business run from home that receives no visitors hides its address and picks a service area. The ordering link and the menu link get their own place, in the section on menu and ordering.

Two things you will no longer find: the old chat between guests and businesses in the profile, which Google switched off in 2024, and the simple free website that could be made from your profile, with an address on business.site. If your profile still points to such a site, replace it with your own website.

Categories and attributes: say exactly what you are

The primary category carries the most weight, because Google uses it to decide where you appear in local results. You choose one. Beyond that, Google lets you add up to nine more. The category also decides which features you get: for restaurants these include links for ordering and reserving, a menu link and the option to enter menu items.

Choose the most specific one that is true. Type a word such as pizza restaurant, snack bar, meal takeaway or lunch restaurant in the field and pick from what Google shows; the names you see can differ by language and from year to year. If no specific category fits, choose a general one. You cannot invent your own.

Extra categories are for what you do besides, not for every dish. Google wants you to pick a few that describe the business as a whole. Say you are a pizzeria that also supplies lunch to offices. Pizza restaurant is your primary category, and one for takeaway and one for catering are added. You leave out ice cream shop, even if you sell the odd scoop. A place that is a bit of everything becomes properly relevant for nothing.

Google warns against using categories as keywords or copying them blindly from the place next door. Looking at what others choose helps you find the right name; choosing what they choose while being something else does not. If you change a category later, Google may ask you to verify again.

Attributes

Attributes are the ticks under ‘Edit profile’: dine-in, takeaway, delivery, outdoor seating, wheelchair access, paying by card or contactless, vegetarian and vegan options, high chairs and whether dogs are welcome. Which ones you see depends on your category. Factual attributes you switch on or off yourself. Attributes that call for an opinion, such as the atmosphere, come from visitors who have been, and you cannot set them.

Go through the whole list once and switch on what is true, not what ‘could be arranged’: a guest who expects a terrace and finds a car park says so in their review. Go through it again whenever something changes.

Google itself counts attributes as part of a complete profile, and a guest looking for a terrace or a vegetarian menu finds you faster if it is there. If you tell Google little, you leave the answer to whatever the reviews happen to mention.

Opening hours, public holidays and special days

Guests see straight away whether you are open, so a wrong hour costs you an order immediately. In your profile go to ‘Edit profile’ and then ‘Hours’. Enter your regular hours per day, with a second slot if you close in the afternoon, and leave the setting on ‘Open with main hours’. If it says anything else, Google does not show your special hours.

If your takeaway or delivery times differ from the dining room, you can set them apart. Under ‘More hours’ Google names delivery, pickup, curbside pickup and drive-through, and uses takeaway and happy hours in an example. This option appears only once your regular hours are set. Your own profile shows which types you get.

Special hours

This is the work most restaurants leave undone. It goes like this:

1. Choose ‘Edit profile’ and ‘Hours’ and click the pencil next to ‘Special hours’.
2. Choose a date. Google sometimes suggests holidays itself, which you confirm with ‘Review’. You add your own date with ‘Add date’.
3. If you are closed that day, tick ‘Closed’. If you are open, clear the tick and enter the times. For a second slot on the same day choose ‘More’ and then add hours.
4. Click ‘Save’.

A special day can cover 24 hours at most, according to Google. If you work past midnight, like a snack bar that closes at two, make two entries: one to the end of the first day and one from midnight on the second. Special hours are meant for short periods, up to six days in a row. If you are shut for seven days or longer, choose ‘Temporarily closed’. If you close for good, that is ‘Permanently closed’, in the same place.

Google recommends entering official public holidays too when you are simply open, so guests are sure to see the right times. That is more work than it sounds, so make one list for the whole year.

Suppose five guests stand at a locked door on Easter Monday because your profile says ‘open’, and an average order with you is €32. That is €160 in sales that goes to the place next door that afternoon, plus five guests who trust you less. Filling it in took ten minutes in January.

How far ahead you can enter special days, Google does not say. Put them in at least three months ahead and check every quarter whether a date needs adding.

Menu and ordering link: where your guest goes next

The menu

Google has its own menu editor for food and drink businesses. You find it at business.google.com under ‘Edit menu’. There you create menu sections, such as starters, mains and desserts, and add menu items with a description and a price. A new section needs a name and at least one dish. According to Google, changes show up in Maps and Search within 24 to 48 hours.

You can also photograph your menu or upload it as a PDF under ‘Photos of menu’. Google also has an experimental version in which ‘Generate a menu’ turns the photo into dishes with descriptions and prices. Check the result dish by dish before you click ‘Publish and edit’, and use a sharp photo that shows the whole menu on one page.

Google does not list the countries where the editor is available. If you do not see ‘Edit menu’, or your menu arrives through a link with another system, it may not work for your profile. Use the menu link instead, under ‘Edit profile’, ‘Business information’, ‘Contact’, ‘Menu link’. If Google finds several sources for your menu, you choose on the ‘Full menu’ tab which one goes public.

Keep prices and dishes identical to your till and your website. A guest who sees €13.50 and pays €14.50 remembers it. How to build a menu that reads well is in how to make a menu that sells.

The ordering link

The ordering link sends a guest from your profile to the place where they can order. Google has three kinds of action links, which in Search are called ‘Booking’, ‘Food ordering’ and ‘Pickup and delivery’. In the Maps app you choose ‘Edit profile’ and then the type. You choose ‘Add link’, paste the URL and click ‘Save’. If you have several links, you mark one as the preferred link so that it comes first.

If your profile has a ‘Food ordering’ list, you will also see providers Google has connected itself. With ‘Set as preferred’ you choose which link is preferred for pickup, for delivery or for both. With ‘Remove link’ you ask a provider to take its link down, which according to Google should happen within five working days. If you switch off ‘Accept orders on your profile’, all ordering options disappear, including those from third parties. Outside the United States, guests order, according to Google, through an ‘Order online’ button or through separate ‘Place an order’ links, depending on the region.

Google sets rules for the link, and they are practical:

• The link goes to a page of your own restaurant, not a generic page or one for another branch.
• A guest must be able to finish the action. An order button that ends in a contact form does not count.
• Social pages, messaging links, app store links and shortened links are not allowed.
• The page has to load fully for Google: no login, no CAPTCHA, no blocking by IP address or country, no error code.
• Google takes one link per domain for each type of link, and your profile has to be verified.

Why point it at your own page? Because an order there gives you a guest and not only an order. You know who they are, what they ordered and when. You can ask their permission for an email and send them a message when they have not been for three weeks. With an order through a platform you get the order, and the guest stays with the platform. Platforms are good at reach and at new guests, and that remains true, as you can read in why guests order through platforms. But somebody who already knows your name and looks you up in Google can be sent straight to your own page. That is where the relationship begins.

If a platform is set as preferred in your profile, that is not a mistake. Just be deliberate about which link comes first, because that is the first place you send a guest. You can see what an ordering page of your own looks like on the ordering page. Setting one up is covered in setting up online ordering, step by step.

Put a recognisable tag after the link, for example ?utm_source=google&utm_medium=businessprofile, and look in your own figures to see how many orders come from it. Google’s rules do not mention tags, so test that the page loads fine with the tag. Then click every link in your profile on your phone, in a private window too. If you use a reservation system, put that link in as well: Google names reserving as its own kind of action link.

Photos and video: the first thing a guest sees

On a phone, your photo is the first thing somebody sees of you. Google sets fixed requirements: JPG or PNG, between 10 KB and 5 MB, preferably 720 pixels tall and wide and at least 250 by 250. The photo should be sharp, well lit, not heavily edited and give an honest picture of your restaurant. A video can run 30 seconds at most, up to 75 MB, at 720p or higher.

Google distinguishes three kinds. Your logo helps guests recognise you and is mainly shown once you have filled in basics such as a phone number and opening hours. The cover photo sits at the top of your profile, although it is not always the first one a guest sees. The remaining photos show what you offer. Photos that break the policy get the status ‘Not approved’ and do not appear in Search or Maps. Google names no maximum number, and you can upload several at once.

Guests add photos too, and you do not choose those. You can report inappropriate photos. If a guest’s menu photo is out of date, you can have it flagged and upload a correct one yourself.

Google names no number. Twelve photos spread over the list above is a practical start, and after that you add one or two every month: a new dish, the terrace in summer. A profile where nothing has changed for two years looks like a restaurant that has closed.

Description and posts

The description

According to Google, the description can be 750 characters long, without URLs or HTML. Write about your restaurant and not about offers, prices or promotions. Say what you offer, what sets you apart and how long you have been there. Open with what sort of place you are and where it is, because that is the part a guest actually reads.

Here is an example with made-up facts that you replace with your own:

Finding it hard to write? In some regions and languages Google suggests a description itself, through ‘Suggest description’. Read it critically. Google itself calls it advertising copy that you should check for accuracy.

Posts

Posts sit under ‘Posts’ in your profile. You pick from three kinds: ‘Update’ for news, ‘Offer’ and ‘Event’. An offer needs a title and a start and end date with times, an event a title and a start and end. If you leave out the times for an event, it runs 24 hours on the chosen days. Posts older than six months are archived unless you set a period. On a computer they appear under ‘From the owner’, on mobile on the Overview or Updates tab.

What works as a post: a new seasonal dish, the week you are closed, an offer with an end date, an evening of live music, a Christmas menu that can be ordered from a certain date. Which promotions are worth running is in eighteen promotions that lift your sales. Google names no fixed frequency. One post a month is enough to show that your restaurant is alive.

A few of Google’s rules that affect restaurants. Do not put a phone number in the text, because Google may remove such posts when the number cannot be linked to your profile. Use the ‘Call now’ button, which uses the verified number. About alcohol you may say that you serve it, but you may not post content about the product itself. Posts that do not comply get the status ‘Not approved’.

What happened to questions and answers

Guests used to be able to ask questions on your profile. According to the trade press, Google announced in December 2025 on its help forum that this public list in Maps is making way for an AI button: a guest asks a question and gets an answer assembled from what businesses replied and from reviews. Google says the rollout is still under way, and its help page says questions and answers are only available for certain categories and regions. What you do about it: answer any questions you see in your dashboard, keep your details complete and answer your reviews, because they feed the answers.

Asking for reviews without breaking the rules

Reviews are the part of your prominence that you can work on yourself. Google names the number of reviews and their ratings as part of prominence. It says nothing about the pace at which they arrive, but your guest does look at the date. Suppose place A has a 4.9 from 300 reviews, the latest of which is two years old. Place B has a 4.5 from 180, with twelve new ones this month. Whoever reads that wonders whether A is still open.

Asking works best at the moment somebody has just said it was good. Google gives you a link and a QR code for this. On a computer go to ‘Read reviews’ and click ‘Get more reviews’. There you copy the link or save the QR code with ‘Save image as’. On a phone you cannot create the QR code, so do it once on your laptop.

• At the bottom of the receipt or on the takeaway bag.
• On a card at the till or on the table.
• In the confirmation email after an order through your own page.
• In your bio and your newsletter.
• In conversation: a guest who says ‘delicious’ is asked whether they would say so online too.

If it goes wrong, Google can remove reviews or restrict access to your profile. For reviews on your own website, the regulator, the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), keeps it short: use only real reviews and make it clear when they were paid for.

If you also want to give guests a way to complain, print an email address or phone number on the receipt next to the review link, and not instead of it. Somebody who is unhappy then chooses where to take it, and you have filtered nothing.

Replying to reviews and reporting bad ones

Replying

You reply to reviews at business.google.com under ‘Read reviews’. Click the ‘Reply’ icon next to the review, write your answer and choose ‘Reply’ again to send it. That only works once your profile is verified. Your reply sits under the review and appears to come from the restaurant itself, with no personal name attached. The writer gets a notification and can still change their review afterwards, in which case the date moves to the date of the change. You can edit or delete your reply. Google checks every reply against its content policy, which usually takes about ten minutes and sometimes up to thirty days.

You are not writing for the person who complained. You are writing for the next person who reads it. Keep it short, mention something specific from the review and say what you are doing about it. The same stock sentence twenty times is worse than no reply. Leave out order details and names: the reply is open to everyone, and a guest’s details fall under the GDPR (the AVG in Dutch). Do not offer a discount in public, but give an email address so the matter can be settled outside Google.

• For five stars: ‘Glad the pizza was still hot when it reached you. The driver will hear about it today. See you next time.’
• For three stars: ‘Thank you for being honest. Waiting up to 45 minutes on a Saturday evening is too long, for us as well. We have rostered an extra driver on Fridays and Saturdays.’
• For one star: ‘We never wanted you to go through this. Email the address at the bottom of your receipt and we will put it right.’

Do replies affect your position? Google says nothing about that. It does say that considered replies show you value feedback. So do it for your guests.

Reporting a review

You cannot have a review removed because you dislike it or because it gives one star. Google explicitly advises against reporting reviews for that reason. You can report a review when it breaks the policy, for instance because it:

• is fake or part of fake engagement;
• comes from a conflict of interest, such as a competitor;
• is not about your restaurant but about another place or a different subject altogether;
• is spam or repeats the same text;
• is offensive or insulting;
• names somebody’s personal details without consent;
• contains advertising or a link, or impersonates somebody else.

1. Go to ‘Read reviews’, click the report icon next to the review and pick a reason.
2. Click ‘Send report’.
3. To follow several reviews at once, use the review management tool: choose to report a new review for removal, then ‘Report’ next to the review, a reason and ‘Send’.
4. Follow the status in that tool: decision pending, report reviewed with no policy violation found, or escalated.

Google usually assesses reports within a few days. If your report is turned down, you can appeal once, for up to ten reviews at a time, through the option to appeal eligible reviews. If the review stays, a good reply is your best defence.

With every report, keep a screenshot and note what is wrong (never ordered, another place, private details). If someone is trying to extort you with negative reviews, Google has a separate reporting route for that in its help pages.

Measuring: what the performance figures tell you

Open your profile at business.google.com and choose ‘Performance’. The data is only available for verified profiles. At the top you pick a period and click ‘Apply’. ‘Interactions’ is the total of everything people did with your profile. Below it are the measures Google explains, and this is what they mean for a restaurant.

The order itself is not in there: among the measures Google explains, there is no counter for orders. That is why you put a tag after your ordering link and count in your own figures.

Suppose March brought 300 website clicks and April 400. On your own ordering page you see that 8 in every 100 visitors from that link order, at an average of €32. April then produced about 32 orders, around €1,024. The 8 in 100 is made up, and you fill in your own number.

Read the type of search too. People who search for your name already knew you. People who type ‘pizza nearby’ did not, and growth in that group is what this work earns you. Compare with the same month last year and not with last week, because the weather, school holidays and a dug-up street move these figures harder than your efforts do. How to read your figures further is covered in reading your numbers.

When it goes wrong: duplicate profiles and wrong details

Duplicate profiles

According to Google, a business may have only one profile, and duplicates are hidden in Search and Maps. Even so, two can exist for your restaurant: the old profile of the previous operator, one an agency created, or one you made by accident.

• It is yours and was made by accident. Delete it from your Google account, but check you pick the right one, because deleting a profile removes its content and linked managers.
• It belongs to somebody else, such as a previous operator at your address. In Google Maps, suggest a merge or report it as a duplicate: Suggest an edit, mark the place as closed or not there, choose ‘Duplicate of another place’ and send. When profiles merge, the reviews are combined, but replies to them may be lost.
• Your profile has wrongly been marked as a duplicate. Get in touch through the contact option. If two businesses share an address, for instance a restaurant and a separate takeaway brand, each can have its own profile as long as names and signs differ.
• You have moved. Update the existing profile and do not make a new one.

Somebody else holds your profile

If a verified profile already exists in the name of a former owner, a web agency or an ex-employee, request ownership. The current owner has three days to respond. If they approve, you manage the profile. If they do not respond, you can claim it after those three days. If they refuse, you can appeal.

Wrong details

Anyone can suggest changes to a listing, and Google reviews them before they go live. That is usually useful, but it can also alter your hours or your status. Google may also call, text or WhatsApp your verified phone number to confirm details, and what you answer can update your profile. Under ‘Edit profile’ you will find ‘Collected info’, with the source and the date, where you can delete items.

So check every month that your hours, number, website and status are right. If others report your restaurant as temporarily closed, Google may email you about it. If ‘Temporarily closed’ appears wrongly, set your hours back to open with main hours yourself and follow the status of your edit on Google’s status page.

Suspension, access and callers who make promises

If your profile is suspended

Google can suspend or disable a profile that does not follow its guidelines. Guests then no longer see it and neither you nor your managers can do anything with it, but you can ask for it to be reinstated. These are the steps:

1. Work out what may be wrong. Think of a name stuffed with keywords, an address that does not check out or a business that does not qualify. Change whatever departs from the guidelines.
2. Open Google’s Business Profile appeal tool, choose the right account, select the profile and the decision you are appealing.
3. Add evidence with ‘Choose file’ and explain in the text box why the profile should be restored.
4. Tick that you are ready and click ‘Submit appeal’.
5. Follow the status in the same tool and wait for the email with the decision.

You may file one appeal per profile, and you do not make a new profile for the same business. If it is turned down, you can ask for an additional review with evidence that was missing the first time. Google names no timeframe.

Who may get in

A profile has one primary owner, plus owners and managers. An owner has full control and can add and remove people. A manager can edit nearly everything but cannot add people or delete the profile. You add someone through ‘More’, ‘Business Profile settings’, ‘People and access’ and ‘Add’: enter the email address, pick the role under ‘Access’, ‘Invite’. Only owners can remove others. Replies and posts from somebody you remove stay in place.

Keep the owner role yourself, give staff the manager role, remove someone in the same week they leave and never share your password.

Callers and agencies that make promises

Sooner or later every owner gets a caller promising a top spot in Google. Google itself says you cannot buy a better position in local results, and its policy for third parties lists guaranteed rankings among the misleading claims agencies may not make. If an agency manages your profile, Google also sets requirements for how that works.

A fixed routine: what you do every month

A profile you fill in once and then forget falls behind within a year: a new hour, a new menu, a review nobody answered. The fix is not more work but a fixed slot. Count on half an hour a month, and put it in your diary as a recurring appointment.

If you have never done any of this, begin with six things. Together they take an afternoon and fix most of the problems in this guide.

1. Look up your restaurant at business.google.com and check that you are the owner.
2. Enter the special days for the next three months.
3. Copy your review link and QR code and have them printed for receipt and counter.
4. Reply to the oldest review that is still open.
5. Check where your ordering link points.
6. Put the monthly routine in your diary.

What your guest sees after clicking your link decides whether they order. That is the subject of six things guests look for on your site.