Guide

How to verify your Google Business Profile

Google verifies a Business Profile by phone or text, email, a video recording, a live video call, a postcard, or instantly for some businesses. Google picks the methods you're offered, and after you submit, review usually takes up to 5 business days.

The ways Google verifies a profile

Google decides which methods you can use. Its help page says they're "automatically determined by Google and can't be changed", based on things like your business type, public information, region and hours.

• Phone or text: Google calls or texts a code, and you enter it on your profile
• Email: follow the steps Google sends to your email address
• Video recording: a short video showing your business
• Live video call: show your business to a Google support agent during business hours
• Postcard: a code arrives by mail, usually within 14 days
• Instant: for some businesses that have verified their website in Google Search Console

What to show on a video

Google asks to see where you are, that the business is real, and that you're in charge of it. For a trade with no shopfront, that usually means:

• Where you are: a street sign, your building or nearby businesses
• The business: your branded truck or van, tools and equipment, signs, invoices or marketing materials
• That you run it: keys to the van or unit, a work area customers don't see, business paperwork

If you work at customers' homes

Google's guidelines say a business that visits its customers, rather than serving them at an address, should set a service area and hide its address. A PO box or virtual office isn't accepted as an address.

If verification fails or stalls

• Check your name, address and phone match your website and paperwork exactly
• Avoid editing your profile while it's being reviewed: recent changes can hold verification up
• Try again with another method if Google offers one
• Never open a second profile for the same business: Google treats duplicates as a violation

Questions

How long does Google Business Profile verification take?

Google says review can take up to 5 business days after you submit. A postcard usually arrives within 14 days.

Can I choose how to verify my Google Business Profile?

No. Google picks the methods it offers you, based on your business type, public information, region and hours.

Do I need to show my home address to verify?

If you serve customers at their location, Google's guidelines say to hide your address and set a service area instead. You still verify the business, but the address isn't shown publicly.

Sources

• Google Business Profile Help: verify your business: “Verification methods are automatically determined by Google and can't be changed.”
• Guidelines for representing your business on Google: “Your name should reflect your business's real-world name, as used consistently on your storefront, website, stationery.”

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