Google Business Profile for Contractors: We Checked 42

A Google Business Profile for contractors is free, and for a trade that works at the customer's house it has one setting that matters more than any other: set it up as a service-area business. That hides your address, shows a service area instead, and keeps your home off the map. Then make sure the name matches your license, the listing says you are open, and the website field points somewhere real.

We wanted to know how many contractors had done even the first step. So we took the 42 licensed contractors we drew at random from California's license file for our last audit and looked each one up through Google's own Places data. As of 2026-10-01:

We build websites for trade contractors, so weigh this accordingly. Everything above is measured, the method is at the end, and no firm is named.

Half are on neither

It is easy to assume a small contractor skips the website and lives on a free Google profile instead. In this sample that is not what happens. The contractors with a website are on Google too: 17 of 18. The contractors without one are mostly missing from both: of the 24 with no working website we could tie to them, three show up on Google Maps.

So the split is not "website people" and "Google people". It is contractors who exist online and contractors who do not, and here it runs close to half and half. A homeowner who hears about one of the 21 from a neighbor and searches the name finds a directory page built from the state license file, or nothing.

Two cautions on that number. A listing showing up in Google's data does not mean the owner claimed it; Google can hold an unverified profile for a business, and the owner can claim it later. And a listing under a name we did not try could exist. We searched every firm's license name and license phone number, and for the ones still missing, the trade names and phone numbers on their own sites and directory listings. Twenty-one is what was left.

Set it up as a service-area business

Google's guidelines say it directly: "If you're a service-area business, you should hide your business address from customers." The example they give is a trade: "if you're a plumber and run your business from your residential address, clear the address from your Business Profile." Once the address is hidden you add service areas instead. Google's service area page allows up to 20, and says the boundary "shouldn't be more than about 2 hours of driving time" from where you are based.

Five of the 20 listings in our sample are set up this way. The other 15 show a street address. Some of those are real offices with a suite number, which is fine if customers can walk in. If yours is your house, hide it. We covered the home-address question in more detail for brokers in our post on Google Business Profile for real estate, and the rule is the same one.

Use the name on your license

Google's rule: "Your name should reflect your business's real-world name, as used consistently on your storefront, website, stationery, and as known to customers." It also warns that "including unnecessary information in your business name isn't permitted, and could result in the suspension of your Business Profile." That means no "Best Plumber Sacramento" and no service list tacked onto the end.

This is the one thing every listing in our sample got right. None of the 20 pads its name with a service or a city. If you are tempted, the trade-off is a profile that can be suspended in exchange for a keyword Google already reads from your category.

Make sure it says you are open

Two of the 20 listings are marked permanently closed. Both belong to contractors whose licenses were current in the state's file the day before we checked. One of them has a working website showing the same street address as the closed listing; the listing carries a different business name.

A customer who sees "Permanently closed" does not call to check. If yours says it, claim the listing and reopen it from Edit profile, then Hours. Google says that once you do, your profile "is no longer marked temporarily or permanently closed on Google Maps and Search." One exception from the same help page: "If your business was marked permanently closed as part of a location or name change, do not reopen the business." Add a new one instead.

Point the website field at your own site

Seventeen of the 20 listings link a website and three link nothing. One of the seventeen links a page that shows a toll-free number we could not find on the firm's listing or its license. Google's guidelines say not to "provide phone numbers or URLs that redirect or 'refer' users to landing pages or phone numbers other than those of the actual business." If a lead service built you a page, check whose phone number is on it.

Reviews start small

Among the 17 listings with any reviews, the median is 10. The busiest has 137, and three listings have none at all. Ten is not many, and it is also not hard to beat, which is the useful part: a contractor who asks every finished job for a review passes the middle of this sample within a season. How to ask without breaking Google's rules is its own post, and the rules are the same for contractors as for the real estate agents we wrote it for: Google bans offering anything in return for a review.

Your license number belongs on it too

California requires a contractor's license number in "all forms of advertising," and the Contractors State License Board's guidance counts "any website or post that solicits business on the Internet." A profile asking for work is that. Google's profile guidelines never mention a license, so nothing on Google will prompt you. Put "CSLB License #" and your number in the business description. Our last audit has the statutes and what else the rule covers.

Google's paid Local Services ads are different. Their screening requirements list a state business license and owner license "where applicable by local law" for HVAC, plumbing and electrical, require general liability insurance, and add background checks for those trades because they are urgent categories. Google's guidelines for the free profile do not mention a license at all, which is why a license number on it is something you add yourself.

What to do this afternoon

1. Search your business name and city on Google Maps. If a listing exists, claim it. If not, create one at business.google.com.
2. If customers do not come to you, hide the address and add up to 20 service areas, within about two hours of your base.
3. Make the name match your license and your truck. Nothing added.
4. Check that it says open.
5. Link your own website, with the same phone number as the listing.
6. Add "CSLB License #" and your number to the description.
7. Ask your last five customers for a review.

What we would build for a contractor

The profile gets you found. The website is where the homeowner decides, so it needs the same things: the job you want to be hired for at the top, the license number on every page, the insurance named, a price range, and a phone number that matches the one on Google. We build those for specialty contractors, and we will look at your listing and your site together if you send us your business name. Get in touch.

How we did this, so you can check it

• The sample. The same 42 contractors as our last audit: seven each in plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, low voltage and general building, drawn at random from the Contractors State License Board's public file for Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado and Yolo counties. Every license was current in the 2026-09-30 download.
• The lookup. Google's Places API, the data behind Google Maps, searched by license name and city, then by the phone number on the license. For firms still unmatched, we repeated the search with trade names and phone numbers from their own sites and directory listings. A listing counted as the contractor's only if its phone number matched one tied to that license, its website matched the firm's own site, or, in one case, its street address matched the address on the firm's site.
• A trap we hit. Google's search leaves out service-area businesses unless the request asks for them. Our first pass did not ask, every listing came back with a street address, and contractors who had hidden theirs looked absent. We caught it by running a control search on mobile car detailers and dog groomers, who nearly always hide their address and also all came back with one, then re-ran everything with the setting on.
• What we could not see. The Places data does not say who chose a listing's category, whether it has been claimed, or what its business description says, so this post makes no claim about any of those.
• A correction it caused. Two listings linked to contractor websites our earlier audit had missed. That article now counts 18 sites instead of 16, and carries a dated note saying so.
• Limits. Forty-two contractors, seven per trade. Nothing here is a rate for California.