Short answer: Open your Business Profile, select Posts, then Add post, and choose Update, Offer or Event. Add the text, a photo or a video and, if you want, a button, then select Post. Google reviews every post after you publish it, and a post older than 6 months is archived unless it has a date range.
Posts are there for customers who already found you. If Google rejected one of yours, go straight to why Google rejects a post.
What a post is and where it shows
A post is a short update you publish on your own profile: news, a sale, an event, a new product. You may know them as Google My Business posts: Google’s developer documentation still calls the posting API the Google My Business API. Google’s help explains the point of posts in one line: when customers find your latest updates on your profile, “it helps them decide to visit your business”.
A post can carry text, photos or videos. Customers find posts in three ways:
- On a phone. In the “Updates” or “Overview” tabs of your profile, on Search and Maps.
- On a computer. In the “From the owner” section of your profile, on Search and Maps.
- As featured posts. On phones, Google can show posts about events, deals or specials on its own. It takes them from your social media, such as Facebook or Instagram, or from the posts you created.
Featured posts are limited for now: Google offers them in English, to single-location food and drink businesses in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Where they show, they take the place of reviews on your mobile profile, and customers reach the reviews by tapping your star rating or the “Reviews” tab.
The social profiles Google reads are the ones linked in your Business Profile, under Edit profile and Contact.
Sources, all from Google Business Profile Help: “Create & manage posts on your Business Profile”. “Manage your social media links”. Read October 22, 2026.
The three types of post
When you add a post, Google asks you to pick one of three types, each with its own fields:
Update
General news about your business. You can add a description, a photo, a video and a button with a link. Google says the button should take customers to a website where they can complete the action, “like make a booking, order online, or learn more”.
Offer
A sale or a deal. It needs a title, dates and times, and Google adds a View Offer button on its own. You can also add a description, a photo, a video, a coupon code, a link and terms and conditions. Hotels can’t publish offers, or any post that mentions deals, promotions or discounts.
Event
Something that happens at your business. It takes a title and start and end dates. Times are optional: if you leave them out, Google shows the event as lasting 24 hours on its dates. You can also add a description, a photo, a video and a button.
Dates also decide how long a post stays. Google’s rule: “Posts older than 6 months are archived unless a date range is set.” Offers and events always carry dates. An update without dates is archived once it’s 6 months old.
Sources, all from Google Business Profile Help: “Create & manage posts on your Business Profile”. “Business Profile photos, videos & posts content policy”. Read October 22, 2026.
How to publish a post
Google’s help describes these steps for your Business Profile on Search and Maps:
- Open your profile. Sign in with the Google Account that manages it. On Google Search, search for my business, or for your business name and city. In the Google Maps app, tap Business at the bottom right.
- Start the post. Select Posts, then Add post.
- Pick the type. Update, Offer or Event.
- Choose what goes in it. A photo, a video, and the extra options such as Button or Coupon code.
- Write it. The description, plus the title, dates and times of an offer or an event.
- Schedule it if you want. Turn on Schedule this post and pick the date and time. To repeat it, open the Repeats menu and choose weekly, monthly or a custom schedule.
- Publish. Select Post, at the bottom right. If you manage several profiles, select the ones that should get it and then Post, or select Skip to keep it on one profile.
To change or remove a post later, open your profile, select Posts, then More next to the post and Edit or Delete. If the dates of an offer or an event change, edit the post so nobody shows up on the wrong day.
Before you select Post, check these points from Google’s help and policy:
- A clear title on offers and events. With their start and end times.
- Clean text. No misspelled words, extra characters or text that adds nothing.
- No contact details Google can’t verify. A phone number, email or social handle in the text that isn’t tied to your profile can get the post removed. Use a Call now button for calls.
- A link to the right page. The page the button opens should let the customer do what the button says.
- A real photo. In focus, well lit and without heavy filters.
Sources, all from Google Business Profile Help: “Create & manage posts on your Business Profile”. “Find your business on Google”. “Business Profile photos, videos & posts content policy”. “Manage your Business Profile photos & videos”. Read October 22, 2026.
Posting through the API
Software and agencies that run many profiles can post without the dashboard. Google’s Business Profile APIs include a localPosts resource to create, list, edit and delete posts. It has the same parts: standard, event and offer posts, a button with an action such as book, order or call, and a time to publish. Google says product posts can’t be created through the API at this time.
Access isn’t open to everyone. Google asks for a profile verified and active for 60 days or more and a website for the business, and it reviews each request sent through its API contact form. An approved project gets a quota of 300 requests per minute. A quota of 0 means it isn’t approved yet.
Sources, all from Google for Developers, Google Business Profile APIs: “Create Posts on Google”. “REST Resource: accounts.locations.localPosts”. “Prerequisites”. Read October 22, 2026.
Buttons, photos and videos
The button
An update or an event can carry one button with a link. Google’s help on posts doesn’t print a list of button names: it describes the button by what the customer does next, such as booking, ordering online or learning more. An offer gets its View Offer button automatically.
For calls, Google’s posts policy points to a Call now button, which “uses your verified Business Profile phone number”. Google’s developer documentation for posts lists six button actions: book, order, shop, learn more, sign up and call.
Send the button to the page where the action happens. A booking button that opens your home page makes the customer look for the form.
Photos and videos
Google’s help on posts gives no sizes of its own. These are its photo and video guidelines for your Business Profile:
- Photos. JPG or PNG, between 10 KB and 5 MB. Google recommends 720 px tall and 720 px wide, and the minimum is 250 px on each side.
- Quality. In focus, well lit, with no significant alterations or heavy filters. In Google’s words, “the image should represent reality”.
- Videos. Up to 30 seconds and up to 75 MB, at 720p or higher.
The content rules are the same as for the rest of your profile. Google applies its prohibited and restricted content policies to reviews, photos, videos and posts alike.
Sources, from Google Business Profile Help: “Create & manage posts on your Business Profile”. “Business Profile photos, videos & posts content policy”. “Manage your Business Profile photos & videos”. “Overview of Google Business Profile policies”. From Google for Developers: “REST Resource: accounts.locations.localPosts”. Read October 22, 2026.
Why Google rejects a post
After you publish, Google reviews the post against its content policy. Your list of posts shows one of three statuses:
- Live. The post is public and shows on Search and Maps.
- Pending. It doesn’t show yet. It’s still uploading or processing, or your profile isn’t verified.
- Not approved. It doesn’t show. Google says the question mark next to the status indicates which content policy the post breaks.
Google’s help and policies give these reasons:
- Contact details it can’t verify. A post with a phone number in the description might get rejected if Google can’t connect that number to your business. Its policy adds that it may remove posts with unverified phone numbers, email addresses or social media handles.
- Links that have nothing to do with your business. Google’s rules for merchants ban email addresses, phone numbers, social media links and links to other websites in posts “that are not related to your business”. Offers and updates are allowed even when they’re promotional.
- Regulated products. If you sell alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceutical products, health and medical devices, gambling, fireworks, weapons, adult services or financial services, you can still post, but not about those products: no offers, prices, coupons or links to buy them. Google’s policy leaves out incidental images, such as a photo of your menu or one where an alcoholic drink isn’t the main focus.
- Content that breaks the general rules. Offensive language or images, sexual content, links to malware or phishing, and anything that misleads customers about what you sell.
- An offer from a hotel. Hotels can’t create offer posts.
- A profile with a problem. Google may reject content added to an unverified profile. On a suspended or disabled profile, content goes through only after the profile is reinstated.
If your profile isn’t verified yet, start with our guide on how to verify your Google Business Profile. If it’s suspended, see what to do when your Google Business Profile is suspended.
What to do when a post is not approved
- Read the reason. Look at the question mark next to Not approved to see which policy Google applied.
- Appeal first if Google got it wrong. Google’s appeals tool, “Manage appeals for your Google Business Profiles”, lets you “view moderation decisions, submit appeals and check appeal status”. Do it before you touch the post, because Google may reject an appeal when the content was already edited or deleted. The tool’s public page doesn’t say which content it covers, so sign in and check whether your post is listed.
- If the reason holds, remove it. A phone number in the text, a link to a site unrelated to your business, a word or an image that breaks the policy.
- Publish the fixed version. Edit the post, or delete it and publish a corrected one.
If the post fails with a submission error instead, Google says to try again later or contact the Google Business Profile support team.
RememberPut your number in a Call now button, not in the text: Google may remove a post with contact details it can’t verify.
Sources, all from Google Business Profile Help: “Create & manage posts on your Business Profile”. “Business Profile photos, videos & posts content policy”. “Prohibited & restricted content”. “Overview of Google Business Profile policies”. “Manage appeals for your Google Business Profiles”. Read October 22, 2026.
Do posts help your ranking?
Google doesn’t say they do. Its page of tips to improve your local ranking lists five things: verify your business, keep your information complete and up to date, respond to reviews, add photos and videos, and add your in-store products if you run a retail store. Posts aren’t on that list.
The same page says local results are “mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity”, and that “there’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google”. Google says it keeps the details of its algorithm confidential, and none of the help pages we read sets a number of posts per week or per month.
Google’s case for posts is about customers: an up-to-date post helps them decide to visit. So post when you have news a customer can act on: a new product or service, an offer with dates, an event.
For what does move your position, our checklist on how to rank higher on Google Maps goes through it in order. Reviews are part of it. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking, and our guide on how to get more Google reviews shows how to ask for them.
Sources, all from Google Business Profile Help: “Tips to improve your local ranking on Google”. “Create & manage posts on your Business Profile”. Read October 22, 2026.
How to see how posts perform
Google’s performance report counts what customers do on your whole profile, not on each post, and it only exists for verified profiles. To open it, go to your Business Profile, select Performance, choose a time period and select Apply. In the Google Maps app, tap Business at the bottom right, then See more next to “Performance”.
The metrics Google lists are interactions, searches, views, directions, calls, website clicks, messages, bookings, booking clicks for hotels, products, menus and offers. Only one belongs to posts: Offers, “the number of times customers viewed and clicked on offers”. Updates and events have no line of their own.
To see whether an update sends people to your website, tag the button’s link for Google Analytics. Google says to always use three tags, added after a question mark and joined with &:
- utm_source=google says where the visit comes from.
- utm_medium=organic says the channel.
- utm_campaign=spring-sale is a name you choose for the post.
Google’s Campaign URL Builder, linked from that help page, builds the tagged link for you. Visits through it then show under Session campaign in the Traffic acquisition report.
Sources: Google Business Profile Help, “Understand your Business Profile performance & insights”. Analytics Help, “URL builders: Collect campaign data with custom URLs”. Read October 22, 2026.
Quick answers about posts
How often should I post on my Google Business Profile?
Google doesn’t give a number. None of its help pages we read sets a posting frequency, and its local ranking tips don’t mention posts. Post when there’s news a customer can act on, such as a new service, an offer or an event. Keep in mind that an update without dates is archived after 6 months.
Can I put my phone number in a post?
Better not in the text. Google says a post with a phone number in the description might get rejected if it can’t verify that the number belongs to your business. It may also remove posts with unverified contact details. Add a Call now button instead: it uses the verified phone number of your Business Profile.
Why does my post say Pending?
Google shows Pending while a post is still uploading or processing, or when your profile isn’t verified. A pending post doesn’t show on Search or Maps. If your profile still shows a Get verified button, finish verification first, because Google may reject content added to unverified profiles.
Can I schedule a post or repeat it?
Yes, both. Before you publish, turn on Schedule this post to pick the date and time. To run it again weekly, monthly or on a custom schedule, use the Repeats menu. If you manage several profiles, Google lets you send the same post to the ones you pick.
Can I see how many people saw my post?
Not post by post. Google’s performance report counts views, calls, website clicks and other actions for the whole profile. The only line tied to posts is Offers, the views and clicks on your offers. To measure an update, tag its button link and read the visits in Google Analytics.
Want us to handle your posts?
Our local SEO service publishes 4 posts a month on your profile, so the customers who find you see what’s new before they visit. They go out in English, Spanish or both at the same price. The service also answers every review and keeps your listings on the same name, address and phone. If your business is in Miami, see local SEO in Miami.
Sources
- Google Business Profile Help, “Create & manage posts on your Business Profile”, read October 22, 2026.
- Google Business Profile Help, “Business Profile photos, videos & posts content policy”, read October 22, 2026.
- Google Business Profile Help, “Prohibited & restricted content”, read October 22, 2026.
- Google Business Profile Help, “Overview of Google Business Profile policies”, read October 22, 2026.
- Google Business Profile Help, “Manage appeals for your Google Business Profiles”, read October 22, 2026.
- Google Business Profile Help, “Find your business on Google”, read October 22, 2026.
- Google Business Profile Help, “Verify your business on Google”, read October 22, 2026.
- Google Business Profile Help, “Manage your Business Profile photos & videos”, read October 22, 2026.
- Google Business Profile Help, “Manage your social media links”, read October 22, 2026.
- Google Business Profile Help, “Tips to improve your local ranking on Google”, read October 22, 2026.
- Google Business Profile Help, “Understand your Business Profile performance & insights”, read October 22, 2026.
- Analytics Help, “URL builders: Collect campaign data with custom URLs”, read October 22, 2026.
- Google for Developers, “Create Posts on Google”, read October 22, 2026.
- Google for Developers, “REST Resource: accounts.locations.localPosts”, read October 22, 2026.
- Google for Developers, “Prerequisites” (Google Business Profile APIs), read October 22, 2026.