Your Google Business Profile can be edited without you. You have four days, and your website is the evidence.

Anyone can suggest new opening hours for your business on Google, or mark it as "permanently closed". In late September, Google spelled out what happens next: you have four days to reject it. After that, Google may publish the edit if other public information supports it, "such as your business's website". So your website is not just a shop window. It is the document Google checks when it has to decide between you and a stranger.

What Google clarified in late September

The change sits in a few lines of the help page "Understand Google updates to your Business Profile", spotted on 23 September by Search Engine Roundtable. Three statements are enough to understand the rule:

• The deadline. "Once notified, you have 4 days to accept or reject the suggestion."
• Automatic publication. If you don't respond within four days, "Google may automatically publish the update if it is supported by other publicly available information, such as your business website."
• The exception. Google may also apply some user-suggested edits to your profile without prior review. You won't always be warned first.

None of this is entirely new: suggested edits have existed for years, and plenty of owners have woken up to opening hours they never entered. What has changed is that the rule is now written down, with a number. And a number is something you can manage.

Who can touch your profile, and how

On Google Maps and in Search, every business profile has a "Suggest an edit" link. Any signed-in user can use it. Most of the time it is a well-meaning customer who found the door shut on a Monday. Sometimes it is a mistake. And sometimes it is not well-meaning at all.

That last row is not theoretical. Your profile is no longer read only by people: it is the raw material for Google's answers. As I showed in the article on Ask Maps, Gemini draws on it to answer questions like "a restaurant open on Sunday evening near here". If the profile says you're closed on Sundays, the AI won't suggest you. It won't tell you either.

Four days, and your website settles it

This is the most important sentence on the help page, and almost nobody has picked up on it. When you don't respond, Google doesn't flip a coin: it compares the suggestion with what it finds elsewhere on the web. And the first source it names is your own website.

It cuts both ways:

This is the most concrete application I know of NAP consistency: the same name, address, phone number and hours everywhere. It is often presented as a minor ranking factor. Here it becomes a tie-breaker: it decides who is right when you're not there to answer.

It goes beyond Google. Directories are also "publicly available information", and they are what AI assistants plug into for local businesses: PagesJaunes, France's main directory, has been available inside ChatGPT since June. A wrong opening time in a forgotten directory can spread in two directions at once.

Three other September changes, same logic

The four-day rule didn't arrive alone. Within a week, Google changed three other aspects of business profiles, and they all tell the same story: the profile is a shared space that Google increasingly arbitrates by machine.

1. Spam review spike alerts (22 September). Google now emails owners when it detects a wave of suspicious reviews on a profile: it removes them so they don't affect the rating, and pauses new reviews while it deals with the risk, "typically within a few days". Good news against review-bombing. But local SEO professionals have noticed the filter also fires on legitimate review drives, especially for new locations. If genuine reviews disappear, the email lets you request a review.
2. Natural-language opening hours (24 September, in testing). Google is testing a field where you describe your hours in a sentence and its AI turns them into structured hours. Handy. But check the result before saving: "closed Mondays except in December" is exactly the kind of sentence a machine can split the wrong way.
3. Sign-in required to read all reviews (late September). On Google Maps, signed-out visitors now have to sign in to read all reviews, sort them and see all photos. Google hasn't said why; the most common theory is to slow down bots and AI platforms that scrape this data. The consequence for you: some potential customers now see less of your reputation than before, and your website can make up the difference.

What it doesn't mean

Before worry takes over, three clarifications.

1. Most suggestions are honest. A customer who reports that your hours are wrong is often right: you changed your hours and forgot the profile. Before rejecting on reflex, check. An accurate profile is worth more than a defended one.
2. A published edit can be fixed. If a mistake gets through, you correct it from your profile editor. The real cost is the days it stayed live, and the customers who found the door shut in the meantime.
3. No profile can be locked. There is no setting to block suggestions, and no provider can sell you one. What you can do is react quickly and give Google solid public evidence: an up-to-date website.

It is the same lesson as in the article on pairing your Google profile with your website, written almost a year ago, but with sharper stakes: the profile makes you visible, and you are not its only owner. The website belongs to you alone. That is also what sets apart the businesses AI assistants recommend: in the audit of 4,776 restaurants I discussed this summer, having a site of your own weighed more than the rating.

The routine, in order

1. Check where your profile's emails go. Open your profile management, see which address is the owner and who the managers are. If it is a former partner's address or the previous agency's, four days go by fast.
2. Turn on notifications for Google updates and user suggestions, by email and in the app.
3. Two minutes a week. Open your profile editor: anything in blue has been changed by Google. Accept what's right, reject what isn't, fix the rest.
4. Bring your website up to the same level as your profile: hours for each day, address, phone. As text, not as an image, not in a PDF. On a page that's easy to find, ideally the contact page and the footer.
5. Describe them in structured data too. A LocalBusiness block with your opening hours and special hours tells Google, with no room for interpretation, what you are stating.
6. Change your hours everywhere on the same day. Profile, website, directories. For the November holidays, 11 November and the festive season, enter special hours in the profile and show them on the site.
7. Clean up your directory listings. PagesJaunes first, then the platforms in your trade. Every forgotten listing is a public source Google may believe.
8. Ask for reviews steadily, not in one big wave: it is the best way not to trip the spam filter. And reply to them; it is a sign of activity.
9. Show a few reviews on your website, real and recent, with a link to your profile. For a customer who isn't signed in to Google, it may be the only part of your reputation they see.

Frequently asked questions

Can someone edit my Google Business Profile without my approval?

Yes. Any Google Maps or Search user can suggest an edit: opening hours, phone, address, website, category, even "permanently closed". Google notifies you by email or in the interface, and you have four days to accept or reject it. If you don't respond, it may publish the edit if other public information supports it, such as your website. In some cases it applies the edit without prior review.

How do I know if Google has changed my profile?

In your Business Profile editor, information updated by Google is shown in blue; anything untouched stays black (or white in dark mode). You also get an email or a notification when a suggestion is waiting for your answer. Make sure those emails land in an inbox you actually read, and open the profile once a week.

What happens if I don't respond within four days?

Google may publish the edit automatically if it is supported by other publicly available information, and its help page explicitly names the business's website. If your site still shows your old hours, it may confirm a wrong suggestion. If it is up to date, it argues your case. You can always correct things later, but the mistake will have been visible in the meantime.

Why did Google remove reviews from my profile?

Since September 2026, Google emails owners when it detects a spike in spam reviews: it removes the reviews concerned so they don't count towards the rating, and pauses new reviews for a few days. The filter can also react to a legitimate review drive, especially for a new location. If genuine reviews have disappeared, the email lets you request a review. Asking for reviews regularly is safer than in a single wave.

Should I show my Google reviews on my website?

It helps, especially now that Google Maps asks people to sign in to read all reviews. A few real, recent reviews with the first name and date, plus a link to your profile, are enough. Don't expect star ratings in Google results, though: reviews a business publishes about itself are not eligible for that display.

If you want to know where you stand, send me your business name: I'll compare your Google profile, your website and your main directory listings, flag every piece of information that contradicts another, and tell you in one page what to fix. It is the foundation of my work on local and AI visibility, and it is built into every business site I build: hours as text, structured data, and a single version of the truth.