Google Business Profile for real estate agents

Your own profile, alongside the brokerage’s

Google’s guidelines call an agent an “individual practitioner”: a public-facing professional with their own customer base. A practitioner can have a profile that is separate from the brokerage office’s profile. Keep it to one. The guidelines say a practitioner shouldn’t have several profiles to cover different specialties.

The profile name should be your real-world name, the one on your sign and business card. No town names, keywords or slogans. Google says unnecessary information in a name isn’t permitted and can lead to suspension.

Your state may require your brokerage’s name in advertising, and some states say where it has to appear, such as next to your contact details. Put it in the description at least, and ask your broker whether that is enough and what the firm’s policy on agent profiles is. Google’s guidelines also describe a “brand: practitioner name” format for a solo practitioner who is the only public face of a branded office, so ask which naming applies to you. Google will ask you to verify the profile. The steps change, so follow Google’s current prompts.

What to fill in

• Category: Pick the primary category that matches your work. For most readers that is the real estate agent category.
• Address and service areas: Use an address where you really work. Google doesn’t accept P.O. boxes or virtual offices. If clients don’t come to your address, hide it and list the towns you serve. The guidelines say a service area shouldn’t reach farther than about two hours’ drive from your base.
• Hours: The hours you actually answer the phone.
• Phone and website: The same number and web address you use everywhere else. Matching details help with local search, as SEO for real estate agents explains.
• Description: Who you help, where you work, your brokerage name and, where your state requires it, your license number.
• Photos: You, your office and homes you have sold. Use only photos you have the right to use. Listing photos normally belong to the photographer.

Posting updates and answering questions

Google offers three kinds of post: updates, offers and events. A monthly market update, a new listing of your own and an open house (as an event) cover most of what an agent needs. Google archives posts older than six months unless you set a date range, so a steady habit beats a burst. A post is advertising, so the same brokerage and fair housing rules apply. Can I post this? lists what to include for each type of post, with state details for five states.

Questions reach you by phone, by message, inside reviews and through whatever question feature Google shows on your profile. Those features change, so look at your profile the way a client would once a month. Answer under your own name and stick to facts. Put the answers you give most often (the areas you serve, how you’re paid, how to reach you) in your description and posts. If you’re a REALTOR®, the Code of Ethics bars calling your services free unless you will receive no compensation from anyone (Standard of Practice 12-1).

How to ask for reviews, and the rules

Google gives each profile a review link and a QR code. Send the link to every client soon after closing with a plain request.

• No incentives: Google bars rewards of any kind for a review: no gift card, discount or drawing. Keep your closing gift separate from the request.
• No gating: Ask every client, not only the ones you expect to be happy.
• No scripts or quotas: Google’s policy also bars having staff solicit reviews with specific content or a set number of reviews. The safe habit is the same for you: don’t give clients wording to use or ask them to mention a town or a service.
• The FTC rule: 16 CFR Part 465, effective October 21, 2024, bans fake reviews, paying for reviews on condition that they are positive or negative, undisclosed insider reviews and suppressing reviews. Penalties run up to $53,088 per violation.

Google’s rule on incentives is the stricter one. The FTC rule targets rewards tied to what the review says. Google bars rewards altogether.

Responding to reviews

Your replies are public. Thank each reviewer in a sentence or two, in your own words, and skip the sales pitch.

With a bad review, wait a day, then keep the reply short and calm:

• Reveal nothing about the client. Under NAR’s Code of Ethics, the duty to keep client information confidential continues after the relationship ends. State law commonly protects details such as the price a client would accept and why they were moving. Don’t share the price, the terms or anything said in confidence, even to correct the record.
• Acknowledge and move it offline. Say you’d like to talk and give a phone number.
• Don’t bargain or threaten. Google prohibits offering anything to change or remove a review, and the FTC rule bans suppressing reviews.
• Report fakes. If the reviewer was never a client, report the review to Google and leave the argument out of your reply.

What not to do

• Fake addresses: A P.O. box, a virtual office or an address in a town where you don’t work.
• Keyword-stuffed names: Your name plus a city, a slogan or “top agent”.
• Extra profiles: One for each town or specialty.
• Reviews from colleagues, relatives or yourself: The FTC rule bans insider reviews that don’t disclose the relationship. Google’s review policy goes further and treats reviews based on a conflict of interest, including employment and family relationships, as prohibited content.

This is general information. State rules and broker policy vary, so check with your broker or an attorney.

Next, see SEO for real estate agents: what’s worth doing and, for the paid side of Google, Google Ads and Local Services Ads for real estate agents.

Common questions

Updated October 2026. General information for real estate professionals, not legal, tax or financial advice. Prices, platform rules and program terms change, so confirm them at the source.