Locations can be managed by business owners directly, by agencies, and by third parties.
Business owners
To share access with a group of people to a large set of locations, you can create location groups. Business owners who manage only a few locations don't need to create a location group. However, if you manage a large number of locations, or you currently share your username and password with other users, we recommend that you transition to use location groups as a safer way to work together.
Agencies and third parties
If your client already has a Business Profile account, they can add your agency account as a manager to their individual locations or to their location group. If they don't already have a Business Profile account, they can create one, and a location group if necessary, and then add your agency as a manager.
If a third party's client needs access to Business Profile APIs, the third party shouldn't request access on their client's behalf. Instead, the client needs to apply for access themselves. A single project ID is used for the client's entire application. Once a client invites you to an existing location group, you can access their account through your generated OAuth2.0 token.
Location tests and verification
If you own more than 10 locations of the same business, the locations must be verified individually or through bulk verification.
Only one project per business can be granted access to the Business Profile APIs. Tests of unverified locations must be performed in your primary project.
Manage listings
The Business Profile APIs allow you to see your listing status and any updates Google has made to your listing.
The mandatory listing fields for the Business Profile APIs are the same as the mandatory fields found in the Business Profile user interface. For more information, see Guidelines for representing your business on Google.
Edits you make with the Business Profile APIs might not be reflected immediately. If you make changes to unverified locations, the edits only appear in the Business Profile interface. You can use either verified or unverified locations to manage Google Ads location extensions.
Edits made to verified business locations are eligible to appear on other Google products. The edited listing might be subject to review to ensure that it adheres to the Business Profile quality guidelines and the Google user content and conduct policy.
Special hours
Google maintains a list of Holidays on Google that are considered to be potential holidays. Maps and Search warn users that a business's location hours might differ on these dates. You can set special hours to let customers know your hours of operation on those days.
Latitude and longitude
To set up your listing, you might be required to provide Google with the latitude and longitude of new locations. This helps us place them on the map. When you create a listing, don't include latitude and longitude by default. We only use latitude and longitude when we can't locate your address. If they're included in subsequent update calls for existing locations, they won't be considered.
Attributes
You can use the Business Profile APIs to provide additional attributes about your business beyond the core business details for Business Profile. For more information, see Guidelines for representing your business on Google.
Attributes are based on the business category. For example, one attribute for a restaurant might
be "serves breakfast." The
attributes.list method
can be used to get a list of attributes for a given category or country.
Attributes might not show up on Google surfaces like Maps or Search after you've updated them. However, if you provide attributes, you help Google develop future local search experiences, match your listing to relevant searches, and better understand your business.
If you manage Google Hotel attributes, consult the Google Hotel APIs for how to manage attributes.