Google Now Bans Prices and Deals in Your Business Listing

What changed, and what didn't

Google's policy page for Maps and Business Profiles has a section on advertising and solicitation. The update spells out two different rules for two different places.

The listing is the permanent part of your profile: name, description, categories, and the like. Per the reporting, Google's wording says the listing can't carry promotional or commercial content that contains time-bound promotions, pricing, or direct calls-to-action. The policy opens by saying contributions should reflect genuine experiences or a business's permanent identity, and closes by saying content shouldn't be posted for advertising or solicitation.

Posts are the temporary part. There, the reported rule is narrower. Offers and updates that may be seen as promotional are otherwise permitted, but posts can't include email addresses, phone numbers, social media links, or links to other websites that aren't related to your business.

The change was spotted by Hiroko Imai, who shared before-and-after screenshots on LinkedIn, according to Search Engine Roundtable. It reads as a clarification of existing language. We can't tell from the reporting whether Google plans to enforce it differently than before, and Google hasn't said.

What a flagged description costs you

A suspended or edited listing is the expensive outcome here. For a local business, the profile is often the first thing a customer sees, ahead of the website. If a description gets flagged and the listing goes into review, you can lose the thing that was bringing in calls while you sort it out.

Think about how descriptions get written. Someone sets up the profile during a launch, adds the grand-opening discount because it's the one thing on their mind, and never looks again. Or an agency pastes in the same ad copy it uses everywhere. Nobody is being sneaky. The text just aged into a policy problem.

I ran a grooming salon for years, and our listing description was the thing I wrote once and never touched again. Ours would have survived this rule. Plenty of descriptions I see now would not.

How to check your own listing

You can do this in about fifteen minutes with your profile open.

1. Read the description for prices and dates. Any dollar amount, percentage off, "this month only," "through Friday," or "starting at" is the pattern the policy describes. Delete it from the description.
2. Read it for commands. "Call today," "book now," "visit our site for a quote." Describe what you do and who you do it for instead. The call-to-action buttons Google provides do that job.
3. Move the deal to a Post. Offers and updates are still allowed there. A time-limited special belongs in a post, where it expires, rather than in a description that lives for years.
4. Check your recent posts for contact details. A phone number or email typed into a post, or a link to a site that isn't yours, is what the post rule targets. Your business phone and website already live in the listing fields.
5. Check services and product entries too. Those fields can hold prices. The reporting we found covers the description and posts, and we haven't seen Google say how this applies to the price fields built for that purpose. Don't rip out prices there on a guess.
6. Write down what you changed and the date. If something gets flagged later, you want a record.

If you want the bigger picture on what belongs in a profile, our walkthrough of how to optimize a Google Business Profile covers it. And if you're not sure who can edit yours in the first place, start with who owns your Google Business Profile.

Overcorrections to skip

Stripping the description down to nothing. The rule is about promotions, prices, and calls-to-action. A plain description of what you do, who you serve, and what makes you different is exactly what the policy's "permanent identity" language describes.

Deleting every post. Offers are still allowed in posts. Only the contact details and unrelated links are the problem.

Trusting a third-party blog's examples as the rulebook. Several write-ups quote sample phrases as "banned." Google's own policy page is the source, and the reporting so far hasn't published a full list of what gets flagged.

Panic-editing every field on a hunch. Google hasn't said whether existing content will be removed automatically or when. Fix the clear violations in the description and posts, and leave the rest until there's something to go on.

Profile rules are one piece of local SEO for a small business, and a boring one to maintain. If your calls or clicks have dipped and you don't know why, this breakdown of falling profile calls and clicks is the place to start.

FAQ

Can I still mention a discount on my Google Business Profile?

In a Post, yes. Per the reporting, offers and updates remain allowed in posts. The restriction applies to the listing itself, such as the description, where time-bound promotions, pricing, and direct calls-to-action are the content Google says to leave out.

Is this a brand-new rule?

Google updated the wording of its prohibited-content policy, and Search Engine Roundtable reported it on October 6, 2026. Whether it changes how Google enforces the rule isn't something Google has said.

Will Google remove my existing description automatically?

Unknown. Google gave no enforcement date and didn't say whether existing listing content will be removed automatically. Editing it yourself now is the safer move.

Can I put my phone number in a Google Post?

The reported rule bars email addresses, phone numbers, social media links, and unrelated website links in posts. Your business phone number already shows in the listing, so a post doesn't need to repeat it.

Does this apply to prices in my services or menu section?

We don't know. The reporting we found covers the description and posts, and Google hasn't said how the rule applies to the price fields built for services and products. Read Google's live policy page before removing anything there.

Where do I read the actual policy?

Google's "Prohibited and restricted content" page in the Business Profile Help Center. Read the live page rather than relying on a summary, including this one.

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Descriptions written once and never reread are the kind of quiet problem ongoing Care is there to catch before it turns into a suspended listing.