Google Business Profile audit: where your listing really stands in 2026
Over 80 checks, matched to your Google category.
A Google Business Profile audit is not there to tell you that your listing "exists". It is there to tell you what, field by field, stops Google from understanding it and stops customers from choosing you. This page explains what an audit actually checks, what you can verify yourself, and the point at which a tool starts to earn its place.
Your profile may well have been filled in properly once. That was three years ago.
Most business profiles are not bad through neglect. They are frozen: set up correctly at launch, then never reopened.
Three situations come up again and again:
- 1
Your profile was created when you opened, and nobody has touched it since. Saturday opening hours are wrong, the most recent photo is several years old, and the description still mentions a service you no longer offer.
- 2
Reviews pile up with no reply. You read them, you do not answer, for lack of time or because you do not know what to write to an unhappy customer.
- 3
A competitor you rate lower than yourself appears above you in the local pack, and you cannot see why. The reason is rarely mysterious: their primary category is more precise, their services are listed one by one, their profile keeps moving.
Pharelio checks these points systematically, without you having to know which ones to look for. You connect your profile, the tool goes through it, and you get a report ranked by priority, starting with what to fix first.
Profile never reopened
- Saturday opening hoursOut of date
- Most recent photo3 years ago
- Reviews with no reply14
Three fields, three ways to lose a customer.
What a Google Business Profile audit really checks
Audit points fall into six families. Each one works on a different lever: being found, being understood, being chosen.
Score by family of checks
Identity and categories
This is the family that decides which searches you show up on.
- Check that your primary category is as precise as possible, not as broad as possible. "Pizza restaurant" and "Restaurant" do not trigger the same queries.
- Add the relevant secondary categories. Google allows several on top of the primary one, and most profiles use none at all.
- Check the business name: it must match your real trading name, with no keywords bolted on, or the profile risks suspension.
- Spot duplicate listings, which are common after a move or a change of ownership.
Contact details, hours and service area
This is the family that decides whether the call comes in or not.
- Check NAP consistency (name, address, phone) between your profile, your website and the directories that cite you. Our NAP consistency checker runs that comparison with no sign-up.
- Fill in special hours: public holidays, summer closures, one-off closing days. A customer who turns up for nothing leaves a one-star review.
- If you travel to your customers, declare service areas instead of showing a home address.
- Check the website link: it should point to the most relevant page, not automatically to the homepage.
Photos
This is the family that decides whether people click on you rather than the business next door.
- Publish recent, original photos of your premises, your work and your team, not stock imagery.
- Cover the categories Google expects for your activity: exterior, interior, team, products, and depending on the trade, a menu or price list.
- Check framing and file size, which determine how images render on mobile. Our photo optimisation feature handles that before publishing.
Description, services and attributes
This is the family that decides what Google understands about your offer.
- List your services one by one rather than as a single block.
- Tick every attribute that genuinely applies to your category: accessibility, parking, payment methods, delivery, booking.
- Write a description that answers the questions people ask you on the phone, without piling up keywords.
Activity and reviews
This is the family that decides whether your profile looks alive.
- Publish Google posts regularly. A profile that never moves sends a signal of inactivity.
- Reply to every review, including one-line positive ones. AI-assisted replies let you clear the backlog without spending your evenings on it.
- Watch for recurring mentions in reviews: they often point to an operational problem before they become a visibility problem.
Competitors and ranking
This is the family that gives everything else a benchmark.
- Compare your profile with the businesses ranking above you on your queries, category by category and field by field.
- Track your position over time rather than on a single day, because the local pack varies with where the searcher happens to be.
The method and how to read the score are covered in our article on auditing a Google profile.
See what the audit checks on my profileGoogle's interface or a tooled audit: what actually changes
Everything above is available for free in the Google Business Profile interface. So the question is not access to the information, it is time, coverage and repetition.
| Criterion | Google's interface alone | Tooled audit |
|---|---|---|
| Points checked | The ones you think of | Over 80, including the ones you do not know about |
| Fit to your trade | None, the interface is the same for everyone | Checks matched to your Google category |
| Prioritisation | Down to your judgement | Fixes ranked by impact |
| Comparison with competitors | Manual, profile by profile | Automated on your queries |
| Tracking over time | No history | Score and ranking followed over time |
| Time required | Half a day, to be done again | A few minutes, repeatable |
Google's interface is perfectly enough if you have one profile, some time, and a habit of local search. It reaches its limit as soon as you manage several locations, or as soon as you want to know not whether your profile is correct, but whether it is better than the one across the street. That is exactly what competitor analysis is for.
How an audit actually runs
The legitimate worry before clicking "Sign in with Google" is not knowing what happens next. Here is the sequence.
- 1
Connect your profile.
You sign in with the Google account that already manages your business. Allow a few minutes, with no manual data entry.
- 2
Let the analysis run.
Pharelio pulls the public fields and your profile data, then applies the checks that match your category.
- 3
Read the report.
You get an overall score, a breakdown by family of checks, and the list of issues found, from the most damaging to the most minor.
- 4
Fix things.
Some points take a minute in the Google interface. Others, such as reworking photos, writing posts or clearing a review backlog, are handled from Pharelio.
- 5
Run the audit again.
A score only becomes useful at the second measurement.
The full workflow is described on the how it works page.
Fix first: primary category too broad
Issues found
Priority- Primary category too broadHigh
- No secondary categoriesHigh
- Public holiday hours missingMedium
- Team photo missingMedium
- 7 reviews with no replyLow
Ranked from the most damaging to the most minor.
What it costs
The audit is free and stays free. The Free plan covers one profile at €0, with no credit card, and gives you the full report.
The Pro plan adds what belongs to ongoing work: rank tracking, competitor analysis, AI review replies, post writing and scheduling, photo optimisation, and three profiles. It starts at €15 per month on annual billing, with a 14-day trial and no credit card. Agencies and multi-site networks have a dedicated plan, and a done-for-you option exists for owners who would rather hand over the execution. The detail is on the pricing page.
Your data stays in Europe
- French company
- European hosting
- GDPR compliant
Pharelio is a French company founded in 2025. The team and the support are French, hosting is European and data processing complies with the GDPR. Access to your profile can be revoked at any time from your Google account, and deleting your Pharelio account deletes your data with it.
The trades where the audit changes its contents
A Google Business Profile audit does not check the same fields for every activity, because Google does not offer the same attributes or the same features from one category to the next. These pages go down to the level of the trade:
Restaurant
Structured menu published with Google and table-service attributes.
Bakery
Early opening hours and end-of-year demand peaks.
Caterer
Declared delivery area and event services listed in detail.
Plumber
Service areas instead of an address, and emergency availability.
Electrician
Certifications on display and NAP consistency across trade directories.
Locksmith
A profile with no visible address and unusual exposure to duplicates.
Heating engineer
Winter seasonality and service-contract attributes.
Dentist
Appointment booking link and careful handling of patient reviews.
Physiotherapist
Precision of the primary category and clinic accessibility.
Veterinary practice
Emergency hours and the clinic-or-surgery distinction.
Hairdresser
Services listed one by one and online booking.
Beauty salon
Treatment menu and treatment-room photos.
Garage
Mechanical specialities as secondary categories and quote requests.
Driving school
Course packages listed in detail and intake dates.
Hotel
Amenities, booking engine and multilingual review handling.
If your trade is not listed, the audit still works: the checks adjust to your Google category, even without a dedicated page.
Frequently asked questions
Is the audit really free?
Yes. The full report, over 80 points, comes with the Free plan, no credit card. The paid features are about tracking and fixing over time.
Do I have to hand over my Google credentials?
No. You sign in through Google's official authentication, which never passes on your password. You can withdraw access whenever you want.
Free audit or a local SEO agency, which should I choose?
Start with the audit. It costs nothing and tells you what is wrong. An agency makes sense if you want to hand over execution over the long run, with a monthly budget far above that of a tool. But commissioning work without knowing what it involves is buying blind. The logical order stays the same: diagnosis first, then the decision to delegate.
How long before it has an effect?
Compliance fixes (hours, category, contact details) are taken into account by Google within days. Effects tied to activity, photos, posts and reviews build up over several weeks. No tool, ours included, can guarantee a position in the local pack: what you can steer is how complete and how compliant the profile is.
Does it work if I have several locations?
Yes. The Pro plan covers three profiles, the Agency plan fifteen. Each profile is audited separately, with its own score.
I do not have time to make the fixes myself.
That is the most common case. A done-for-you option exists: you receive the report, we take care of the fixes and the follow-up. Quote on request.
Start by knowing where you stand
A Google Business Profile audit takes a few minutes and costs nothing. By the end you will know exactly which fields are incomplete, which attributes are missing for your category, and where to start.
No credit card. Secure Google sign-in.