How to get on Google Maps and move up: diagnosis and a 30-day plan

To appear on Google Maps you need a verified Business Profile that follows Google’s guidelines, and setting it up is free. To move up, Google ranks by relevance, distance and prominence: you work on the first with your category, services and website, and on the third with reviews and mentions. You do not control distance, and nobody can pay for a better position.

Below you will find a table to work out why you are not showing up, each lever with its official source and a 30-day plan ordered by impact. To review your profile point by point, use our Google Business Profile audit: 20 points, with a score and what to fix first. If you run a law firm, each point is explained in the Business Profile guide for law firms.

Appearing and moving up are two different problems

Appearing means your business exists on the map: if someone searches for your name, your profile comes up. Moving up means showing up when someone who does not know you searches for what you do, such as “physiotherapist in Castellón”.

The first depends on rules: “only verified businesses can show their information on Maps and Search”. This refers to the information you add yourself: your business can have an unverified profile, but you do not control it. The second depends on an algorithm that Google does not detail.

Try this test before you change anything. Google suggests browsing privately to see your profile the way others see it:

1. In a private Google Maps window, search for your name and your city. If you do not show up, your problem is appearing.
2. Search for your main service and your city, without your name. If you showed up before but not here, your problem is moving up.

Why you are not on Google Maps: diagnosis by symptom

Find your case in this table. The cause given is the most likely one according to Google’s documentation, not the only one.

Google ranks the map by relevance, distance and prominence

Google explains this in its tips to improve your local ranking: local results are based mainly on 3 factors.

The same page adds that verifying your profile makes it more likely that you will appear, and that with inaccurate information you may not show up in searches in your area. It also makes clear that you cannot request or pay for a better local ranking.

Bing documents the same 3 factors, calling the third one popularity. And it says plainly that your website’s SEO also counts towards local ranking.

Our approach on distance. Google does not explain how much distance weighs when the search includes a city, such as “dentist in Valencia”. Take a clinic in Paterna: the cautious assumption is that on the Valencia map it will compete at a disadvantage against the clinics in the centre. It can compete in that city through its website and ads, or by opening a real office there.

Before creating the profile, check whether it already exists

Search for your business on Google Maps by name and city. It may already exist: Google completes profiles with data from other sources, including what users contribute.

You will be in one of these 3 situations:

1. It does not exist. Go to business.google.com/add and choose “Add your business to Google”. It is free.
2. It exists and nobody has verified it. Open the profile on Google Maps and select “Claim this business”.
3. It exists and someone else verified it. Request ownership. If the owner does not respond within 3 days, you may be allowed to claim it, though not always.

A preliminary filter: to have a profile, someone must deal with customers in person during the stated hours, at your premises or at the customer’s home. A business that only operates online does not meet the requirements.

Verification has 4 rules that save weeks

They are in the help article on how to verify your business:

• Google chooses the method. Phone or text message, email, video call, postcard or video recording, and you cannot change it. If you are offered video, Google recommends it.
• Finalise your name, address and category before you request it. If you get a postcard, you cannot change them while you wait or the code will stop working. Most postcards arrive within 14 days and the codes expire after 30.
• Allow up to 5 working days for review once you finish the steps.
• Search Console can speed it up. With your website verified in Search Console, in some cases Google verifies the profile instantly.

And one ownership rule. If an agency manages your profile, Google considers it an authorised representative: it must encourage you to be the owner and transfer ownership to you immediately if you ask.

Your primary category tells Google which searches are yours

Google says so explicitly: “The categories you select influence your local ranking on Google”. Its example: with the primary category “Pizza restaurant”, it may show you to people searching for restaurants, Italian restaurants or pizza.

The category guidelines ask you to choose the categories that complete the sentence “this business IS”, not “this business HAS”. Use as few as possible and the most specific ones, and never simply as keywords. You can choose one primary category and up to 9 more, always from the list, and changing them may require you to verify again.

Our procedure for choosing the primary category:

1. Search Google Maps for your main service and your city.
2. Open the top 3 profiles and note the category shown under the name.
3. Choose from the list the most specific category that describes what your business is. Do not copy your competitor’s if it does not describe you.
4. Use secondary categories only for real lines of business, such as the bakery inside a grocery shop, which is Google’s example.

Next, add each service in the services editor. According to Google, when someone searches for one of your services, it may be highlighted on your profile.

Your name is the one on your shopfront, even if your competitor cheats

The name must match your real name: the one on your shopfront, website and stationery. The name guidelines prohibit adding slogans, service or location information, opening hours or phone numbers. And they warn: “If you do, we may suspend your Business Profile”.

Take a clinic called Clínica Dental Ribera:

• Correct: “Clínica Dental Ribera”, if that is how it appears on the sign, the website and the invoices.
• Incorrect: “Clínica Dental Ribera | Implants in Castellón”.

And what if your competitors do it and rank above you? You can report names with spam from Maps. Copying them is costly: faced with a pattern of violations, Google can restrict your account and suspend all its profiles.

Changing your real name to include a service is not a shortcut either. If the change affects the category or the services the name describes, Google treats it as a new business. You have to close the profile and create another one.

If you work at clients’ homes, yours is a service-area profile

Google allows a profile if your business visits customers wherever they are, even if you do not have premises open to the public.

It distinguishes 3 types. A storefront business receives customers at its address and a service-area business goes to the customer’s home. A hybrid business does both, with permanent signage and staff during opening hours.

If you do not receive customers at your address, the guidelines say you must hide it. Google’s example is a plumber who works from home. You are not left off the map: your profile will show the service area.

The service area rules:

• Up to 20 areas, by city, postcode or other area, never as a radius.
• Their boundaries should not be more than 2 hours’ drive away, although Google allows exceptions.
• A single profile for the whole area. Changes can take up to 48 hours to show.

A virtual office does not count, nor does a coworking space without your signage or your own staff during opening hours.

Our approach. The area tells Google whom you serve. It does not move you up the map: Google does not document that expanding it makes you appear in more cities. Add the towns where you actually work and cover the rest from your website.

Reviews: ask everyone, without incentives and without filtering

Reviews are part of prominence: “The more reviews and positive ratings a business has, the better its local ranking will be”. Google also recommends replying to them.

Asking for them is allowed. Google gives you a link and a QR code under “Read reviews” and then “Get more reviews”. It suggests putting them on receipts, in thank-you emails or at the end of a chat.

The Google Maps content policy prohibits offering incentives, asking only some customers for positive reviews, pressuring people on your premises and asking for specific content. Nor does it allow reviews from employees, relatives or competitors. The penalty can include blocking new reviews, hiding the ones you have and showing a public warning.

Our approach. Tie the request to a fixed moment in your process, such as the invoice, the end of a course of treatment or the closing of a case file. That way nobody decides who gets asked. And do not write to your whole client base at once: since Law 10/2025 (Ley 10/2025), the Consumer Protection Law (Ley de Consumidores) has required reviews to refer to services purchased or used in the previous 30 days (art. 20.4).

You have 6 messages for asking for reviews and 6 model replies in how to get Google reviews. If you run a clinic, first check how to reply to patients in healthcare advertising.

Your website reinforces your profile: one page per service, with the same details

Google builds your profile from several sources, including the crawled content of your official website. It can also infer your category from your website and from mentions of you online.

3 basic checks:

1. That Google can read your website. When you link it in your profile, Google asks you to check that its crawler is not blocked. You can check this with our free SEO and AI audit.
2. The same details everywhere. Identical name, address, phone number and opening hours on your profile, your website, Bing, Apple and directories. Google may change your profile if someone tells it a detail is wrong.
3. One page for each main service. What you do, for whom, where and how to get in touch. The linked website must represent that location. If you have several offices, our approach is to link each profile to the page for its office.

City pages are the tricky part. Google considers it doorway abuse to have “multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page”. And it considers it scaled content abuse to generate many pages with AI that add nothing useful for the user.

Our approach. Create a city page only if you serve clients there and can say something of your own: where you travel from, which local council procedures you know or what work you have done there. If only the name of the city changes, it is a doorway page.

Local business structured data tells Google your opening hours and other details, although Google does not guarantee that it will show them. For mentions, start with the verified listings, directories and registers in our business directories tool.

Bing Places and Apple Business: the same details on 2 more maps

Signing up to the other 2 maps takes little effort if your Google profile is already in good shape.

Bing Places is available in Spain and can import your Google profile and keep it in sync. If your Google profile is verified, Bing verifies the copy automatically and publishes it in about 7 to 12 days. Check it afterwards: Bing’s own help warns that duplicates can be created and that categories may not match.

Microsoft also recommends Bing Places so that your details can be included in AI-generated answers. How to check whether AI assistants already cite you: how to find out if ChatGPT recommends your business.

Apple Business replaced Apple Business Connect on 14 April 2026 and is free. Your location listing appears in Apple Maps, Safari, Spotlight and other services. When you add a location you have to verify it, for example with a call to the registered phone number and a 4-digit code.

Apple also corrects listings based on customer reports, and if it changes your name, status or opening hours, it lets you know by email. Another reason to have the same details everywhere.

And a note on AI: Gemini uses public information from Google Maps to search for businesses, with their address, website, ratings and opening hours.

Measure with your Business Profile performance data, not with your phone

Your position changes depending on where the searcher is, so searching for yourself on your phone tells you little. Use the Performance report, available for verified profiles, which combines organic and Google Ads results.

Our approach to reading it. Compare each month with the previous one. In “Searches”, separate those that include your name from those that do not: the latter are clients who did not know you. And add up calls, directions, clicks and messages: they are signs of interest that the map brings you. Count real enquiries yourself, as we explain in how to measure your website’s enquiries.

If you use Google Analytics, you can link your Business Profile or add UTM parameters to the website link on your profile. And if you work with an agency, Google is clear: you have the right to know how your profile is performing.

What does not work or is prohibited

None of these practices is supported by Google’s documentation, and several can cost you your profile:

• Paying to come first. You cannot request or pay for a better local ranking. Ads on Maps exist, but they are ads.
• Hiring someone who guarantees the top 3. According to Google, a third party cannot promise or directly influence your position on Maps.
• Stuffing keywords into the name. It is grounds for suspension.
• Using an address that is not yours. If Google determines that your business does not exist at that location, it disables the profile.
• Creating a profile for each service. They are duplicates and are not shown.
• Buying or incentivising reviews. You lose those reviews and risk a public warning.
• Setting half of Spain as your service area. It exceeds the 2-hour guideline.
• Cloning city pages. They are doorway pages.
• Posting every week to move up. Posts inform, but Google does not list them among the local ranking factors.

What to do on Monday: a 30-day plan ordered by impact

First comes what can make you disappear, then what decides which searches you show up for and, finally, what makes you better known. Skip any steps you have already sorted out.

If you are waiting for the verification postcard, leave reviews and photos until after you get the code: without verification, the profile does not let you reply to reviews or show your photos.

If you would rather not do it alone, at NOR studio we work on the local SEO of SMEs, law firms and clinics in Castellón and Valencia with these criteria. And if you first want to know where you stand, request your audit.