Google Business Profile Without Showing Your Home Address: A Guide For UK Trades

Google splits businesses into three types:

• Shop front: customers come to you, such as a café or a showroom.

• Service area business: you go to the customer, such as a plumber, roofer or cleaner.

• Hybrid: both. Customers can visit you, and you also go out to them.

If customers do not come to your address, Google treats you as a service area business. Google's own rule is clear on this: if you do not serve customers at your business address, you should hide it.

A yard or unit only counts as a shop front if it is staffed and customers can visit during your opening hours. A van parked at home does not count.

1. Go to your Business Profile. Searching your business name on Google while logged in is the quickest way in.

2. Select Edit profile, then Location.

3. Next to Business location, select the edit pencil.

4. Turn off Show business address to customers.

5. Select Save.

Google says most changes show within about 10 minutes, though some take longer.

Google still needs a real address to verify you. That address stays private. Customers only see your service area.

1. In Edit profile, then Location, find Service area and select the edit pencil.

2. Add the towns, cities or postcodes you cover.

3. Select Save.

A few rules worth knowing:

• You can add up to 20 service areas.

• You can no longer set a radius, such as "20 miles around Bristol". You have to name the areas.

• Google says your whole area should be no more than about two hours' drive from where you are based.

• Service area changes can take up to 48 hours to show.

Be honest about where you work. Listing towns you never go to does not make you rank there, and it can put your profile under review.

Not in the way most people fear. Hiding your address changes what customers see, not where Google thinks you are based. Google still knows your location from verification.

What it does mean is that your service area does not let you rank everywhere you list. Distance from where you are based still matters. You will usually rank best close to home and less well further away, with or without your address showing. To compete in the towns further out, you need the other signals: reviews, a website page for that area and a profile filled in properly.

These are the ones we see most with trades:

• Using a virtual office or a mailbox address. Google does not accept PO boxes or remote mailboxes, and a rented address you do not work from is not eligible.

• Using a friend's unit or a relative's address to look more local. If you do not work from it, it will not pass verification and it puts the profile at risk.

• Making a profile for each town you cover. A service area business can only have one profile for the whole area it serves.

• Showing your address when customers never visit. It is against the guidelines, and it puts your home on the map.

• Stuffing towns into your business name, such as "Dave's Plumbing Bristol Bath Keynsham". Use your real business name only.

If your profile has already been suspended, our guide to getting a suspended profile back walks through what to do.

• Business type set as a service area business

• "Show business address to customers" turned off

• Service area lists the real towns or postcodes you cover, no more than 20

• One profile for the whole business

• Business name is your real name, nothing added

• Your website is linked, ideally to a page about the area you most want work from

Every website we build is connected to the client's Google Business Profile, and we check the basics like these as part of it. If you are not sure your profile is set up right, ask us for a free analysis and we will tell you what to change.