GBP Audit Tool

Comprehensive Google Business Profile audit with completeness scoring.

Google Business Profile Audit that tells you why you're invisible

Enter your business. We pull your live Google Places record, run ten checks against Google's own published rules, and give you one verdict instead of a score out of a hundred. Then we compare you with the median competitor in your category and your area, so you can see whether you are behind or simply further away. No email, no sign-in, no gate on the report.

Reads live Google Places dataTen checks, one verdictBenchmarked to your categoryNo email, no sign-in

Built and reviewed by Sayed Hasan, founder of SEOs Hut · Updated 28 September 2026 · Free, no signup

why is my google business profile not showing up after verification

Usually nothing is broken. Verification makes you eligible to appear, not likely to. Google documents three local ranking factors — relevance, distance and prominence — and a newer competitor with the right primary category and a closer pin beats a fuller profile. Check your primary category first, then the distance from your verified pin to where customers search. Suspension looks different: your edits stop publishing.

Before you go looking for a fault

Google has published the whole ranking model, and it is three words long

“There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.”
<b>Google Business Profile Help, local ranking documentation</b> — Google Business Profile Help

The same page names the three things Google does use: relevance, distance and prominence. Nothing else is listed. So when a thinner competitor sits above you, the cause is inside those three words, or you are suspended. It is almost never a missing attribute, an unposted update or a photo you forgot to tag.

Triage

Start with the symptom you can actually see

Most owners arrive here certain something is broken. Work down these three questions in order. Each verdict is either something you can act on this afternoon or something you can stop worrying about tonight.

What happens when you search for yourself?

You come up for your business name, but never for your service and your town

Eligible, not competitiveNothing is broken. This is the ordinary case, and it is decided by your primary category, your distance from the searcher and your review signals. Go to question two.

You still appear in results, but you cannot publish edits — or they revert within seconds

Looks like a soft suspensionStop editing. Every further change is another review. Fix the likely trigger first: a name carrying service or location words, or a recent address change. Then appeal through Google's own route with photographs of your fixed signage and a recent invoice in the business name.

You have gone from Maps and search entirely, and there is a notice in your dashboard or inbox

Hard suspensionDo not create a second listing. That is the single action that makes getting back harder. Assemble real-world proof before you appeal: permanent signage at the address, business cards, invoices, a utility bill in the business name.

Only you can see the profile, and only while signed in

Not live yetEither verification has not completed or a review is pending. Google says edits usually appear in about ten minutes, but documents up to 30 days in some cases. Check the address is one Google accepts: a virtual office is not eligible for a Business Profile at all.

Where exactly do you disappear?

Within a mile or two of your own front door

Category mismatch, most likelyPrimary category is the number one Local Pack factor in Whitespark's 2026 study, score 227. Read your category as a sentence: this business IS a ___. Not HAS a. A tyre shop that picked Car Repair is queuing in the wrong pack, and no amount of photos will move it.

You hold your own town and lose the next one along

Proximity, working as designedDistance from your verified pin to where the person is standing is factor two, score 225, and you cannot move your building. Win the searches where you are close, and win the ordinary web results where distance counts for less — track your map pack and organic positions side by side so you can see which of the two is actually moving.

You slide down the pack in the last hour of the day

Open-hours filteringBeing open at the time of search is factor five, score 189. The panel describes it plainly: when your business is open you can be sitting pretty at number one, then 60 minutes before you close you start to drop off. Make your hours true, including holiday hours, and stop guessing.

A competitor at the same address, in your same primary category, outranks you

Two businesses, one pinGoogle does not document a filter for this, so treat it as a strong pattern rather than a rule: where two listings share an address and a primary category, one tends to be left out. What you can change is your primary category and the suite-level accuracy of your address.

You rank, and the phone still isn't ringing?

Profile views look healthy, calls do not

A conversion problem, not a ranking oneNothing else on this page will help you. Look at your photos, the date on your most recent review, whether your hours are honest, and whether a human answers at eight in the morning. Visibility and conversion are separate problems and they need separate weeks.

Calls arrive for work you do not do

Category or services mismatchFill in Google's predefined Services. They moved from 81st in 2023 to 22nd in 2026, score 134 — the biggest legitimate new opportunity on the profile, and almost nobody completes them.

People find the profile and never reach your website

Wrong landing pagePoint the website field at the page that matches the category, not your homepage, and mirror your verified profile details into LocalBusiness schema so the page and the profile tell one story rather than two.

A complete profile makes you eligible. It does not make you rank.

This is the belief that sends people looking for a fault. Filling everything in gets you into the running; the map pack is then decided by your primary category, the distance from your pin, and your review signals. Google Posts are a conversion surface — there is no published evidence they move rankings, so posting daily and watching for a change is a week you will not get back. And if you are checking whether you show up in AI answers as well, test that separately: a complete profile is necessary there and no longer sufficient.

The 2026 factor ranks

What actually moves the map pack, in order

Whitespark published its Local Search Ranking Factors on 6 November 2025: 47 invited local search experts scoring 187 factors. This is the part of that data an owner can act on, highest first. Read the bottom three rows twice.

What you could change	Rank of 187	Score	Worth your afternoon?
Primary category	#1	227	Yes. If one thing is wrong on your profile it is probably this.
Distance from your pin to the searcher	#2	225	You cannot change it — but it explains most of what you are seeing.
Keywords in the business name	#3	223	Only if they are genuinely your name. See the next section before you touch it.
Being open at the time of search	#5	189	Yes. Accurate hours, including holidays.
Predefined Services filled in	#22	134	Yes. Moved up from #81 in 2023 and almost nobody does it.
Keywords in the profile description	#171	41	No. And stuffing it is the highest-impact negative factor of the eight new ones, with a suspension risk attached.
Keywords in image file names and metadata	#182	Not published	No.
Keywords in your replies to reviews	#182	Not published	No. Reply like a person.
Geo-tagged photos	#187 of 187	23	No. Dead last of every factor measured.

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

Geo-tagging photos is sold as a local SEO service. It finished last out of 187. If someone is charging you for it, that is the row to show them.

The name field

The commonest self-inflicted suspension

A name that breaks four rules at once

Ace Plumbing LLC – 24hr Emergency Plumber Leeds (inside Wickes)

Why: Google's prohibited list is enumerated, not vague: marketing taglines, store codes, the registered and trademark symbols, fully capitalised words, hours information, phone numbers or URLs, service or product information, location information, containment information, and repeated bilingual names. This one name carries hours, service, location and containment. LLC is allowed only where you can show signage, cards or invoices that consistently display it.

The name on the van

Ace Plumbing

Why: Keywords in the business title genuinely are factor three, score 223 — which is exactly why people get suspended reaching for them. The rule is not "no keywords". It is "your real name". If the sign above your door says Ace Plumbing Leeds, then that is your name and you may use it, because you can prove it with a photograph.

Suspended

What to do in the week you cannot fix it

A suspension feels like an emergency and behaves like a queue. The work that shortens it is not on the profile at all.

Assemble evidence before you appeal, not after. Google's own rules tell you which evidence counts, because they name what needs proving: permanent fixed signage for a business that shows an address; signage, cards or invoices for a legal term or special character in the name; staff and customers on site during business hours for a co-working desk. Photograph all of it at the address, dated where you can.

Then make the rest of the internet agree with your appeal. Google says outright that it builds profiles partly from crawled web content including your official website, from licensed third-party data, and from users who contribute facts. If your own footer, your old listings or an out-of-date directory entry still carry a different address, you are appealing against your own paper trail. Find every place that disagrees with your profile first — your profile is the record you want to be true, and that check tells you which sources are still arguing with it.

Resist the urge to build new listings while you wait. Once you are back, see which directories you are actually missing from and work them in the order that matters for your category rather than blasting three hundred of them. And if you want to know whether the brand itself is recognised — not just the shop — check whether Google resolves your business to a single identity, because a suspension often sits on top of a business Google was never sure about.

Things people are still being sold

Four ways owners burn a month

Each of these comes from the same idea: that activity on the profile is what ranks. Two of them carry a suspension risk.

Posting every day and waiting for movement

What happens: You publish for four weeks, nothing shifts, and you conclude something must be broken at a deeper level. Posts are a conversion surface. No published evidence connects them to rankings.

Do this instead: Post when you have something a customer would want to know — a closure, an offer, a new service. Then spend the recovered hour on your primary category and your Services list, which are ranked #1 and #22.

Writing keywords into the description

What happens: Description keywords rank 171st of 187, score 41 — near-myth tier. Meanwhile stuffing it is the highest-impact of the eight new negative factors and carries a documented suspension risk. It is the only field where effort makes things worse.

Do this instead: Write two plain sentences a customer would read. The description is a liability, not a lever.

Paying for geo-tagged photo uploads

What happens: Geo-tagged photos finished last of all 187 factors, score 23. Keywords in image metadata came 182nd. It is still sold as a monthly service.

Do this instead: Upload photos because customers look at them before they call. Judge them on that, not on rankings.

Treating the profile as the whole job

What happens: The profile handles the map pack. It does nothing about whether your social accounts exist under your name, or whether an AI assistant naming local options mentions you at all.

Do this instead: Find out which accounts are live under your business name — some of them may not be yours — and check the profile work is not the only place your details live.

If you do three things after this page

One: read your primary category as the sentence "this business IS a ___" and change it if it fails. Two: fill in every predefined Service that applies. Three: make your hours true, including the holiday ones. All three are free, all three are in the top 22 factors, and none of them involve a word you would have to look up. Then check which sources get quoted for your category before you spend money anywhere else.

Questions

Google Business Profile Audit FAQ

Business not showing up unless searched by name?

That is the normal state of a profile that is eligible but not competitive. Appearing for your own name proves the listing is live. Appearing for your service plus your town is a contest decided by your primary category, your distance from the searcher and your review signals. Start with the category — it is the highest-ranked factor of the 187 measured.

Why would new businesses with barely any reviews rank above us?

Because reviews are one signal among three. If their pin is closer to the person searching and their primary category matches the search more exactly, they can beat a fuller, older profile. Distance is factor two of 187 and you cannot change it. Category is factor one and you can change it today.

Does posting daily on GMB actually help ranking or is it a waste of time?

There is no published evidence that Google Posts affect local rankings. They do show a customer something on your listing, so they are worth doing when you have real news — a closure, an offer, a new service. Posting to a schedule for ranking reasons is time better spent on your category and Services.

Google Business Profile Suspended and don't know why

Check the name field first: Google prohibits taglines, store codes, hours, phone numbers, URLs, service information, location information and containment information in it, and requires real-world proof for legal terms like LLC. Then check the address against the rules on P.O. boxes, virtual offices and co-working desks. Do not create a second listing.

Why is my Google Business Profile only visible to me

That usually means verification has not completed or a review is still open. Google says edits usually appear in about ten minutes but can take up to 30 days. Confirm the address is eligible: P.O. boxes and remote mailboxes are not acceptable, and a virtual office is not eligible for a Business Profile at all.

How long do profile changes take to show up?

Google documents about ten minutes for most edits, with up to 30 days in some cases. Approved service-area changes can take up to 48 hours. So an edit that has not appeared after an afternoon is not evidence of a penalty — it is inside the documented window.

Can I pay Google to rank higher in the map pack?

No. Google's own words: there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Ads appear above the pack and are labelled as ads; the pack itself is relevance, distance and prominence. Anyone offering paid placement in the organic map results is selling something that does not exist.

Primary sources used on this page

Google: the three local ranking factors, and that ranking cannot be bought — support.google.com
Whitespark Local Search Ranking Factors 2026 — 187 factors scored by 47 experts — whitespark.ca
Google's enumerated rules for business names, categories and addresses — support.google.com
Google: how long profile edits take, and where Profile Strength applies — support.google.com
Google: where Business Profile information comes from, including your own website — support.google.com

Keep going

Check the things sitting underneath your profile

The profile is the record. These four check whether the rest of the web agrees with it, and whether anything beyond the map pack can find you.

NAP Consistency Checker Local Citation Finder Entity & Knowledge Panel Checker AI Visibility Checker Keyword Rank Checker All 26 free tools →

Read the guide: how to run a full local SEO audit, Google Business Profile SEO: 7 Steps to Optimize Your Listing and Benefits of Google Business Profile for Local Businesses. Want it handled for you? See our Google Business Profile services.