Google has revised its Business Profile posts policy to warn that it may remove posts containing unverified phone numbers, email addresses or social media handles. Its posting guide also says a phone number in a post description may trigger rejection if Google cannot verify its connection to the business.
Hiroko Imai spotted the documentation changes, which Search Engine Roundtable reported. The pages establish Google’s current rules, but give no date for when enforcement changed.
Google has rewritten its phone-number rule
The previous policy explicitly prohibited phone numbers in post content. That wording appears in an August 31 snapshot of Google’s help page.
The current policy focuses on whether contact information is verified and extends the warning to emails and social handles. Google’s posting guide makes the phone-number condition more explicit: Google must be able to connect the number to the business where the post appears.
Neither page explains how Google verifies an email address or social handle included in post text.
The Call now button avoids that uncertainty
The revised wording gives business owners more room to include a legitimate phone number than the old blanket prohibition did. However, approval depends on Google’s ability to establish the connection, and the documentation supplies no procedure for obtaining that approval.
For posts intended to generate calls, Google’s recommended Call now button remains the clearest documented option. It uses the verified phone number attached to the Business Profile. For bookings or orders, the posting guide allows an action button linking to a website where customers can complete the task.
If a post is rejected, Google’s guide says it will be hidden from Search and Maps. Owners can inspect the question mark beside its Not approved status to identify the policy involved, then edit the post.
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