Google Business Profile Policy Bars Calls to Action in Listings, Permits Offers in Posts
Google has rewritten the advertising and solicitation section of its prohibited and restricted content policy for Google Maps and Business Profiles. The old version said “Don’t post content for advertising or solicitation purposes” and listed “Promotional or commercial content” with no distinction between a customer’s review and a business’s own listing. The new version opens: “Contributions to Google Maps should reflect genuine experiences or define a business’s permanent identity”, keeps the existing rules for users, and adds a “For merchants” list of two rules:
- In the listing: no “Promotional or commercial content that contains any of the following: Time-bound promotions, pricing, or direct calls-to-action.”
- In posts: no “Email addresses, phone numbers, social media links, or links to other websites in your posts that are not related to your business.” The policy adds that “Offers and updates that may be seen as promotional or commercial content are otherwise permitted in posts.”
Hiroko Imai, a web consultant for small businesses and a Diamond Product Expert in Google’s Business Profile help community, spotted the edit and posted before and after screenshots, and Search Engine Roundtable reported it on 6 October 2026. Google has not announced it or given an effective date.
Two parts are new in substance. Calls to action are named for the first time: Google’s business description guidelines already barred a description that focuses “on special promotions, prices, and offer sales”, but neither page mentioned lines like “call today for a free quote”. And offers in posts, which the old blanket wording technically covered, are now explicitly allowed.
The practical split is that the listing describes the business and posts carry the selling. Read through the business description and other free-text fields for anything that pushes an action or would date, such as “call today for a free quote”, “20% off until Friday” or “from £49”, and move it into an Offer or Update post. Google does not say what counts as “the listing”, or how the rule sits alongside the price fields in its own products and services editors, so treat it as covering promotional copy you write rather than those structured fields. The posts rule is consistent with the unverified contact information change to the posts policy in September: keep phone numbers, email addresses and unrelated links out of post text.
Sources
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