A Google Business Profile is the listing that shows a practice on Google Maps and in the map results on Search: its name, hours, phone number, reviews, photos and booking link. For a practice with an office, it can be the first thing a nearby patient sees. Google's help center says you can add or claim a profile at no charge.
It also comes with more rules than most owners expect. This guide covers who is eligible, how practice and practitioner profiles fit together, each part of the profile, and the straight answer for telehealth-only practices, all from Google's own help pages as of 8 October 2026. For where the profile fits in the rest of your search work, see our guide to local SEO for healthcare.
Google Business Profile for doctors: the short answer
- Eligible: a practice that sees patients in person, at an address it staffs, during the hours it lists.
- Also eligible: an individual doctor or therapist in a public-facing role who can be reached at that location during stated hours.
- Not eligible: a telehealth-only practice, a virtual office or a mailbox address.
- What it does: Google's local ranking tips say local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and how well known a business is, that complete, accurate information helps, and that there's no way to pay for a better local ranking.
Who is eligible for a Google Business Profile
Google's eligibility guidelines set one test: to qualify, a business must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours. The same page lists online-only businesses among the examples that aren't eligible, along with any business whose address is a P.O. box or a mailbox in a remote location.
Google's guidelines for representing your business add the address rules:
- Create the profile for your actual, real-world location. Suite and floor numbers are fine.
- A business that shows its address on Google should keep permanent, fixed signage with its name at that address.
- Don't create more than one profile for each location, in one account or several.
For a practice, that means an office where you actually see patients, your name on permanent signage there, and someone present during the hours you list.
Practice profiles and practitioner profiles
Google treats doctors and other public-facing professionals as individual practitioners. Its guidelines say a practitioner should have their own profile if both of these apply:
- They work in a public-facing role. Support staff shouldn't have profiles.
- They can be contacted directly at the verified location during stated hours.
A practitioner's profile may include a title or degree, such as Dr. or MD. Three rules decide how the profiles fit together:
- Several practitioners at one location. The practice gets its own profile, separate from each practitioner's. A practitioner's profile carries only their own name, not the practice's.
- A solo practitioner under a practice brand. Where one practitioner is the only public-facing one at a branded location, Google says it's best to share a single profile, named in the format "[brand]: [practitioner name]".
- One profile per practitioner. A practitioner shouldn't have several profiles to cover each of their specializations.
Departments inside a hospital or larger organization can have their own profiles if they operate as distinct, public-facing entities, each with a name and main category different from the main business.
Illustrative example
A group practice with four therapists at one office has a profile for the practice, named exactly as its sign reads. Each therapist who sees clients there and can be reached there may have a profile under their own name. The office manager doesn't get one, and no therapist gets a second profile for a second specialty.
Name, categories and services
Your real name, with nothing added
Google's guidelines say the name should be your real-world name, as used consistently on your signage, website and stationery. Adding unnecessary information to the name isn't permitted and could get the profile suspended. The examples Google rules out include marketing taglines, service information, location information and phone numbers.
So a practice called Lakeside Psychiatry (an illustrative name) is listed as "Lakeside Psychiatry", not "Lakeside Psychiatry: Ketamine and Spravato Clinic Denver". If the city or the treatment isn't part of the name on your sign, it doesn't go in the profile's name.
Primary category: what the practice is
Google's guidelines ask for as few categories as possible, each as specific as possible, chosen to complete the sentence "This business IS a" rather than "this business HAS a". Its category help page says you pick from Google's list and can't create your own, that the categories you choose affect your local ranking, and that changing one may mean verifying the business again.
The test sorts most healthcare cases quickly. The table below shows how it applies. It is illustrative and doesn't give Google's category names: type your profession into the category box and pick the closest match from the list Google shows.
| Practice | What it is (the primary category) | What it has (services, not categories) |
|---|---|---|
| Therapy practice | The licensed profession its clinicians practice | Couples counseling, EMDR, anxiety treatment |
| Psychiatry practice | Psychiatry | Medication management, ADHD evaluations, Spravato |
| GI practice | Gastroenterology | Colonoscopy, IBS care |
| Weight loss clinic | The type of medical practice that runs the program | GLP-1 programs, nutrition visits |
| Functional medicine practice | The type of medical practice its clinicians are licensed for | Lab testing, membership plans |
Services and description
Google's duplicate-profile guidance says not to create separate profiles for each service; list your services on your one profile instead. Use the words patients search with: "couples counseling", not "relational work". The business description is for what you offer and your history. Google's guidelines don't allow links in it, or a focus on promotions and prices.
Hours, phone and booking link
Hours
Google asks for your regular customer-facing hours, with special hours for days like holidays. Eligibility rests on in-person contact during the hours you state, so list only hours when someone is there to see patients. One wrinkle: the same guidelines say businesses that operate only by appointment shouldn't provide hours, so a practice that sees people strictly by appointment should read that section before filling the field in.
Phone
The number should connect to your location and be under the practice's direct control, and Google asks for a local number rather than a central call center line where possible. It doesn't allow numbers that send callers to anyone other than the business itself. If calls ring out while you're in session, the fix is in how the line is answered, not in the profile; our missed call recovery page covers how we handle that.
Booking link
Google's business links help lets a profile carry links for booking an appointment, plus one link to a list of services, which Google's own example says can cover telemedicine or virtual services. Its category page notes that health and beauty businesses can add a booking button. You can connect a booking provider through Reserve with Google, or add your own link.
Google's business links policy sets the conditions:
- The profile must be verified before you can add a link.
- The link must lead to a landing page for your business, and for a practice with several locations, to that location's page.
- It must let the person complete the action. Social media pages, messaging links, app store links and link shorteners don't qualify.
- Google's crawler must be able to load it. A page that requires a login or a CAPTCHA can't be checked, and links Google can't check may be removed.
That last rule matters in healthcare. A "Book online" link that opens a patient portal login can fail it, and it asks a new patient to create an account before they see a single time. Point it at a page where someone can pick a time and book, which is what our booking pages for practices are built to do.
Photos and posts
Google's photo guidelines say an image should represent reality, and that photos and videos appear only after the profile is verified. Add the outside of the building and the entrance, so a first-time patient recognizes it, then the waiting room and any clinicians who are happy to be shown.
Leave patients out of every photo. Two sets of rules point the same way:
- Google's content policy. Its prohibited and restricted content rules bar posting a person's face in a photo or video without their consent, and posting personal information, including medical information.
- HIPAA. Full-face photographs are on the list of identifiers in 45 CFR 164.514, and 45 CFR 164.508 requires a patient's authorization before their information is used for marketing, written in plain language.
A photo of a patient in your clinic tells the world they are a patient, whatever the caption says. If a patient ever offers to appear, get the signed authorization first, and check it with whoever handles your privacy compliance.
Posts about prescription treatments
The same restricted-content rules say profile content may not feature calls to action or offers for the sale of regulated pharmaceuticals or health and medical devices, and shouldn't display deals, coupons or pricing for them. In practice, a weight loss or ketamine practice shouldn't post a monthly GLP-1 price or a Spravato offer. Post about the practice instead: a new clinician, new hours, how a first visit works.
Reviews and replies
Google's local ranking tips say more reviews and positive ratings can help a business's local ranking, and that replying shows you value the feedback. Its content policy bars offering incentives such as payment or discounts for reviews, and asking for content that doesn't reflect a genuine experience.
Replies are where practices get into trouble. Google's review help says your reply is checked against its content policies and then posted publicly under the review. Never confirm in a reply that the reviewer is a patient, or mention their care, even when they've described it themselves. Thank them and offer a number to call.
Our guide to Google reviews for doctors covers how to ask within your ethics code and how to reply without disclosing anything. Ongoing review handling is on our patient review management page.
Health and insurance fields
None of the Business Profile Help articles we checked on 8 October 2026 described health-specific or insurance fields for profiles. Google's attributes help says some attributes can only be changed in certain locations, countries or business categories, and that attribute names may change over time. So check what your own profile offers: open Edit profile, then More, and fill in only what is true.
Accessibility attributes are worth a minute, and Google defines them precisely: a wheelchair-accessible entrance, for example, is three feet (one meter) wide with no steps, or has a ramp.
Keeping the profile accurate
- Google can change it. Google's page on profile edits says that if it receives reports your information isn't accurate, it might update your profile and send you a notification. Check the profile after any alert, and monthly regardless.
- Edits take time. The same page says edits usually take up to 10 minutes to review, but sometimes up to 30 days.
- Duplicates. You can have only one profile for each business, and a profile treated as a duplicate won't show on Search or Maps. If two profiles exist for the same practice, request a merge through Google Maps. Google says merged profiles combine their reviews, but replies to reviews may be lost.
- Moving offices. Update the existing profile with the new address. Google says not to create a new profile for the new location.
- Clinicians who leave. A departed clinician's profile can keep showing your address. Look for one whenever someone leaves, and agree with them what happens to it.
- Closing a location. Mark it permanently closed. Google says a closed profile may still appear for people who search for it, clearly shown as closed.
Verifying the profile
Google's verification help says the methods offered are chosen automatically, depend on your business type, public information, region and hours, and can't be changed. The options it describes are:
- Phone or text. A code by call or SMS. Google notes that automated phone menus (IVR systems) won't get the code, so have a person ready to answer the line.
- Email. Steps sent to the address shown on the verification screen.
- Live video call. Only during your business hours, from the location, showing outside signs and somewhere only staff can go.
- Video recording. Google's video verification rules ask for one unedited recording of at least 30 seconds, made on a phone through the profile, showing the location, permanent signage with the same name as the profile, and proof you manage the business. It must not show other people's faces or private information. In a clinic, record before patients arrive, and keep charts and screens out of the shot.
- Postcard. A code by mail, which expires after 30 days. Don't edit the name, address or category while you wait, or the code won't work.
Google says its review takes up to five business days after you complete the steps, and occasionally longer.
Telehealth-only and hybrid practices: Google Business Profile without an address
Google's answer for telehealth practices is short, and the details below decide the edge cases.
A telehealth-only practice isn't eligible
Eligibility requires in-person contact with customers during stated hours, and Google lists online-only businesses as ineligible. A practice that sees every patient by video doesn't meet that test, however local its patients are.
A hybrid practice lists the office it really has
If you see some patients in person, the profile belongs to that office, with the hours someone is there. Telehealth goes in your services and on your website, and Google's links help gives telemedicine and virtual services as examples for a profile's services link.
Home offices and service areas
Google's address help says the address on a profile is public, so if patients come to your home office, it shows. Google's guidelines also expect permanent signage at any address a profile shows. Hiding the address is meant for service-area businesses, which Google describes as businesses that visit or deliver to customers and don't serve them at their own address. A concierge doctor who makes house calls can fit that description. A therapist who sees everyone by video can't. A service-area profile can list up to 20 areas, and Google says the overall area shouldn't stretch more than about two hours' drive from where the business is based.
Virtual offices, coworking and mailboxes
Google's address rules are specific:
- A rented mailing address you don't operate from, which Google calls a virtual office, isn't eligible.
- An office in a coworking space only counts if it has clear signage, receives customers during business hours and is staffed by your own people during those hours.
- P.O. boxes and mailboxes at remote locations aren't acceptable.
Google's guidelines open by saying you must follow them to make sure your profile won't be suspended, and Google reserves the right to suspend profiles that break them. A profile built on an address you don't work from is one you can lose.
How to verify a Google Business Profile without an address
Even a profile that hides its address is verified at a real business address. Google's video verification rules for service-area businesses ask you to film street signs or landmarks at that address and the tools you work with, and say that if you run a service-area business from home, you can record the signs in your immediate neighborhood. That route is for businesses that really travel to their customers. It isn't a way around eligibility for a practice that only works online.
What a telehealth-only practice can do instead
Without a profile, the work moves to three places. Your own site should say in plain text which states you're licensed in and that sessions are online. Directory profiles, such as Psychology Today for therapists and your insurers' directories if you're in network, should match it exactly. And ads should be targeted to the states you're licensed in, which our guide to PSYPACT and the counseling compacts covers.
A page for each state only helps if it says what genuinely differs there. Google's spam policies list pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page as doorway abuse. Our guide to local SEO for telehealth and hybrid practices covers the rest.
If you're licensed in more than one state, our state pages cover each state's licensure compacts, health data laws and board advertising rules.
What not to do
- Don't use a virtual office, a mailbox or a colleague's address to get a profile.
- Don't create one profile per state, per city or per service. Google allows one profile per location and says to list services on it instead.
- Don't add a city, a treatment or any other keyword to your name.
- Don't give one practitioner several profiles for their specializations.
- Don't buy reviews or offer anything in return for them.
- Don't post patient photos, or reply to a review in a way that confirms someone is a patient.
- Don't point the booking link at a portal login, a social profile or a shortened link.
Our healthcare SEO work starts by listing every profile that points at a practice's address, then keeping the one that is the practice complete and accurate. We only list addresses a practice actually works from.
Sources
- Google Business Profile Help — Business eligibility and ownership guidelines, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Guidelines for representing your business on Google, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Add or claim your Business Profile, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Tips to improve your local ranking on Google, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Manage your business category, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Resolve duplicate profiles & ownership issues, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Manage your local business links, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Set up bookings through a provider, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Business links policies & guidelines, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Manage your Business Profile photos & videos, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Prohibited & restricted content, checked 8 October 2026
- 45 CFR 164.514 — Other requirements relating to uses and disclosures of protected health information, checked 8 October 2026
- 45 CFR 164.508 — Uses and disclosures for which an authorization is required, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Manage customer reviews, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Manage your business attributes, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Understand what happens to your Business Profile edits, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Mark your business as closed, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Verify your business on Google, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Verify your business with a video recording, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Manage your business address, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Manage your service areas for service-area & hybrid businesses, checked 8 October 2026
- Google Search Central — Spam policies for Google web search (updated 28 August 2026), checked 8 October 2026