Google My Business vs Google Business Profile: What Changed and What Businesses Need to Know

People still search for "Google My Business" years after the name disappeared. Business owners still say "my GMB", plenty of guides still use the old name, and many agencies still sell "GMB optimization". None of that is wrong, but it causes confusion about what's current. Here's what actually changed and which advice still holds.

The short answer

Google My Business and Google Business Profile are the same product. Google renamed Google My Business to Google Business Profile in November 2021. Your listing, reviews, photos and history carried over. What changed was the name and where you manage it.

A short timeline

Old names and their current equivalents

Advice that's now out of date

If a guide or a provider recommends any of these, check the date:

• "Build a free website with your GMB profile." Those websites were shut down in 2024. A business needs a real website.
• "Turn on messaging / chat." Business Profile chat was discontinued in July 2024.
• "Seed your Q&A section with questions and answers." The public Q&A feature is being replaced by AI-generated answers drawn from profile information, reviews and other content. That makes an accurate, complete profile and descriptive reviews even more important.
• "Use the GMB app." It no longer exists.

Advice that still holds

Most fundamentals haven't changed at all:

• Use your real-world business name. Adding keywords or locations that aren't part of your real name broke the guidelines then and still does.
• Choose the right primary category. Still the most important relevance signal on the profile (choosing categories).
• Keep information accurate: address or service area, phone number, website and hours, including special hours.
• Add real photos regularly.
• Ask customers for reviews and respond to them. Never buy or incentivize them (reviews strategy).
• Keep details consistent across the web.

Google still describes local results as being based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence (its help page now summarizes the last one as popularity). That framework predates the rename and still explains most of what you see. See Google Business Profile ranking factors.

What's genuinely different now

• Management is everywhere. Owners can edit the profile from Search or the Maps app in a few taps. Convenient, but it means more people inside a business can change things. Agree who's responsible.
• More automation. Google uses information from the web, from customers and from its own systems to suggest or apply updates. Review the profile regularly and correct anything wrong.
• AI is part of the profile experience. AI-generated summaries and answers increasingly draw on profile content and reviews. Accuracy and completeness matter more, not less.
• Verification has evolved. Video verification is now common, and requirements vary by category and region.

Why the name confusion matters for businesses

Two practical reasons:

1. Hiring. Someone marketing themselves as a "GMB expert" isn't necessarily out of date, but ask what's changed since 2021. Their answer tells you a lot.
2. Search. If you're looking for help or information, search both terms. Plenty of good current advice still uses the old name in its title.

The takeaway

Call it GMB or GBP: what matters is that the advice you follow is current. Use Google Business Profile as the name in your own materials, ignore guidance built on retired features, and focus on the fundamentals that have outlasted every rename. For a current step-by-step approach, start with how to optimize a Google Business Profile, or, if you're new to the product, what is Google Business Profile?.