Google Business Profile (GBP)

Google Business Profile, formerly Google My Business, is the listing you claim and manage to control how your business appears in Google Search and Maps. It holds the facts Google trusts most about you: legal name, address, phone, hours, primary and secondary categories, service area, photos, posts, Q&A, and the reviews customers leave. When someone searches your business name and sees a card with all of that on the right side, that's your profile rendered.

For local search, it's the single most important asset you have. The local 3-pack, the three map results shown for searches like dentist near me, is driven by profile signals: category match, distance, review count and rating, and completeness. SOCi's 2026 Local Visibility Index found the Google local 3-pack surfaced 35.9% of multi-location brand locations, far more than any AI engine measured in the same study. Nothing else you control comes close for local intent on Google.

AI engines read it too, as a source rather than a ranking. Yext, analyzing 6.8 million AI citations across retail, financial services, healthcare, and food service, found about 42% came from managed listings like Yelp and Google Business Profile. In one vendor analysis of 267,280 AI citations from its own clients' local campaigns, the SEO tool Local Dominator found Google was the second most-cited source after Yelp. A thin or inaccurate profile is a thin or inaccurate source for every engine reading it.

One recent development needs careful reading. Google announced Google Business Profile integration in the Gemini app on June 10, 2026. What that does is let a business owner manage their profile and get operational suggestions from inside Gemini. It's an owner-side tool. It is not a documented change to how Gemini cites or recommends businesses to end users, and nobody should write that Gemini now recommends businesses from GBP data on the strength of that announcement.

For a plumber, dentist, or restaurant, the work is unglamorous: choose the right primary category, fill every field, keep hours current including holidays, add real photos, and reply to reviews. Then make sure the profile's facts match your website exactly, because engines cross-check. Tibly's cited-source tracking shows whether Google's listing of you is among the sources engines cite for your buying questions, and its Actions include a profile kit when the listing is the gap.