Businesses will soon need a Google Business Profile (GBP) to continue running Local Service Ads (LSAs) and displaying customer reviews.
This change tightens the integration of LSAs and GBPs, with Google positioning the business profile as the “source of truth” for ads.
Why we care. LSAs are a key tool for businesses looking to capture local search traffic. Without a verified and accurate GBP, your ads may be paused, potentially disrupting lead generation and customer acquisition. The integration of reviews in GBP also places new emphasis on properly managing profiles to maintain credibility and visibility in search results.
Key details.
- Deadline: By November 21, businesses must have a Google Business Profile to run local service ads.
- Verified Information: The name and address of the GBP must match the LSA; otherwise the ads will be paused. Unconfirmed or suspended GBP will also lead to ad breaks.
- Consolidation of reviews: Going forward, customer reviews for LSAs will be managed through GBP. By early 2025, all reviews will appear on both the LSAs and the GBP.
What they say. Ben Fisher spotted the message and shared the alert he received on X. He said:
- “Your Google Business Profile is now the source of truth for LSA. LSA ads will be paused if you do not have a GBP associated with an LSA.”
Big picture: This change streamlines how businesses manage their reviews and ads, but may cause disruption for businesses that have not fully aligned their GBP with their LSA.
What’s next: Businesses must ensure their GBP is verified, accurate and linked to their local service ads by the November deadline to avoid disruption to ad campaigns.
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About the author
Anu Adegbola has been the Paid Media Editor for Search Engine Land since 2024. She covers paid search, paid social media, retail media, video and more.
In 2008, Anu’s career started with
deliver digital marketing campaigns (mostly but not exclusively paid search) by building strategies, maximizing ROI, automating repetitive processes and bringing efficiency from all parts of marketing departments through inspirational leadership on both agency, client and marketing technology sides.
Outside of editing the Search Engine Land article, she is the founder and host of the PPC networking event – PPC Live weekly podcast PPCChat Roundup.
She is also an international speaker with some of the stages she has presented being SMX (US), SMX (Munich), Friends of Search (Amsterdam), brightonSEO, The Marketing Meetup, HeroConf (PPC Hero), SearchLove, BiddableWorld , SESLondon , PPC Chat Live, AdWorld Experience (Bologna) and more.