Why Google changed your business hours or details, and how to stop it.

Find what changed, and who changed it

Sign in to the account that owns the profile and open Edit profile. Google marks information it has changed in blue, and shows a notification at the top of the page when there are updates from Google. Text in black or white has not been changed by Google.

Then rule out the people and tools that can edit the profile legitimately:

• Another owner or manager. Check the list under Business Profile settings, then People and access.
• A tool connected to the profile, such as a listings service that pushes your details to many sites, or a booking provider.
• Someone on your team using Google's AI assistant app, which Google now lets owners use to change hours and details by chatting with it.
• Your own edit, still under review. Google says most edits are checked within minutes and some take up to 30 days.

Last, open Collected info, also under Edit profile. Google may call, text or send a WhatsApp message to the verified phone number to confirm your details, and the answers can update the profile. Collected info shows what Google gathered, where from and when.

Where Google gets your details

Google's help says it builds business profiles from several kinds of source:

• Public web pages it crawls, including your own website.
• Data it licenses from other companies.
• People who contribute facts and photos, including you as the owner.
• Its own interactions with the place, such as those calls to your number.

Customers contribute more than most owners realise. Anyone signed in to Google Maps can suggest a change to your name, category, location, hours, phone number, website or whether you are open. In the US, Google Maps also has Tell Maps, which lets people report hours or a closure by typing or talking to it.

So an unwanted change is usually a symptom. Somewhere, a page, a listing or a customer says something different from your profile, and Google has picked a side. Undo the change, then find the source.

Accept, reject or replace a change

For updates Google has already made, review them on the profile: keep the ones that are right, and edit the field back where they are wrong. Your edit replaces Google's version once it passes the usual review.

For some edits suggested by customers, Google now asks you first, by email or with a notification in the profile. Its help sets out the timing:

• You have four days to accept or reject the suggestion.
• If you do not respond, Google may publish it, if other public information, such as your business website, supports it.
• Some suggested edits are applied without asking you, where Google says they are needed to meet its policies.

Four days is short. Make sure the notifications reach someone who reads them every day, and that your website shows the right hours, because Google weighs a suggestion against what your site says.

If Google refuses your own correction because it cannot confirm it, the edit shows as not approved. In the UK and the EEA you can appeal that through the Business Profile appeals tool. Elsewhere, Google points you to its contact form.

Make your website say the same thing

Your website is one of the sources Google reads, and one it checks suggestions against. If it disagrees with your profile, it works against you. Look in the places old hours hide:

• The footer, which often carries the hours on every page.
• The contact page, and the page for any second location.
• Last year's holiday notice, still live on a page of its own.
• A PDF price list or menu with the hours printed on it.
• The structured data in the page code, which states your hours in a form Google reads directly. Schema markup for a local business explains what it holds.
• Your booking tool's public page, if it shows opening times.

Take a cafe that moved to winter hours in October. The profile says it closes at 3pm, the footer still says 5pm, and a customer who read the website suggests 5pm. The suggestion agrees with the website, so Google may publish it. The fix is the footer, not another edit to the profile.

Fix the other listings Google may read

Google also licenses business data from other companies, and many directories copy one another, so a wrong phone number or old hours on one site can travel. Check the places your details appear most:

• Your Apple Maps place card, which customers can also report as wrong.
• Bing Places, Facebook and Yelp.
• Your trade body's or regulator's register.
• Directories that still list a previous address or phone number.

Business directory listings: which ones matter covers which listings to keep, and how to clean them up after a move.

Set special hours before every holiday

Holidays are when customers most often report a business as closed, or as open when it is not. Set the hours yourself before anyone else does. Google's rules:

• Use special hours for a holiday, an event or a closure of up to six days in a row.
• For seven days or more, or for an unknown time, mark the business temporarily closed, and restore the hours when you reopen.
• Confirm your hours for official holidays even when they are normal. Google suggests it so customers can see the hours are current.

To set them, open Edit profile, then Hours, and choose the edit icon next to Special hours. Google lists upcoming holidays: confirm each one, or add your own date.

A dental practice closed from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day is shut for more than six days in a row, so it marks the profile temporarily closed for that stretch, with a reminder in the calendar to restore the hours on the morning it reopens. A practice that stays open between the holidays confirms its hours for each of those days instead.

Use more hours for the parts that differ

Some businesses run on more than one timetable, and a single set of hours invites wrong suggestions. Google's answer is more hours, for parts of the business with their own times, and its guidelines say which hours belong in the main slot:

• A restaurant uses its dine-in hours as its main hours, followed in order of preference by takeaway, drive-through and delivery.
• A car dealership uses its sales hours, and its new car hours if they differ from used cars.
• More hours, such as a kitchen's last orders or a service department, should generally fall inside the main hours.

A pub whose kitchen closes at 9pm while the bar stays open until 11pm shows 11pm as its main hours and the kitchen as more hours. Otherwise the customer who arrived at 9.30pm to eat may suggest a 9pm closing time for the whole pub.

When your regular hours change for good

A permanent change, such as a new closing time from next month, needs the same care. Change it everywhere on the same day, in this order: your website first, because Google weighs suggestions against it, then the Business Profile, then Apple Maps, Bing, Facebook and your booking tool. A few days later, search for the business on a phone to check that the new hours have held.

Seasonal businesses do this twice a year. Google's guidelines let a seasonal business use the current season's hours as its regular hours, and mark itself temporarily closed in the off season. A garden centre or a beach kiosk that changes its hours in spring and autumn should put both dates in the calendar, with the list of places to update next to them.

Calls and texts from Google

Google may contact the verified phone number by call, text or WhatsApp to confirm your details, and what it is told can update the profile. Whoever answers the phone is, in effect, editing your Business Profile.

You can switch these automated calls and texts on or off under Business Profile settings, then Advanced settings. Google says they can also help with bookings and with confirming prices and availability for customers. Leave them on if the person who answers knows your hours. Turn them off if calls go to an answering service or a temp who would guess.

Either way, read Collected info once a month. Google says deleting an entry there removes it from its records, though it does not change anything else on the profile.

When it is more than the hours

The same causes change other details. What to look for, and where a wrong version may have come from:

• Phone number: an old number from a directory, or from a previous owner's listing. Fix the profile, then the listing.
• Website: a link changed to a booking marketplace or an old domain. Check connected tools and suggested edits.
• Name: a suggestion based on your van, your receipts or the name on your door. If that is the name customers know, Google's rules side with the suggestion.
• Category: changed by a suggestion or by an agency. Change it back if it was right, and find out who changed it.
• Closed or temporarily closed: a customer's report, or your own temporary closure never undone. Fix this first, because it stops people coming at all.
• Pin or address: a suggestion after a driver could not find you. Check the pin against your door.

Google's Maps help says large changes that alter a business substantially can be rejected, because they can look fraudulent. That protects you from some hostile edits, and it can slow your own big corrections too, so make them one at a time.

Wrong details also spread beyond the profile: Google's AI answers repeat what they find, as how a local business shows up in Google's AI answers explains.

Make sure the alerts reach someone

Most unwanted changes stick because nobody saw the warning. Under More, then Notifications, Google lets you switch on alerts for account updates, customer activity such as new reviews and photos, reminders about your business information, and bookings. They can arrive by email, and in Search and Maps.

Send them to a mailbox someone checks daily. If the owning account is an old Gmail address nobody opens, the four days for a suggested edit pass in silence, and the first you hear of it is a customer at a locked door.

A monthly check

• Open Edit profile and look for anything in blue.
• Read Collected info for answers given over the phone.
• Compare the hours with your website, your Apple Maps place card and your booking tool.
• Set special hours for the next holiday.
• Search for the business on a phone, signed out, and read the profile as a customer would.

On our Care plan, changes to hours, prices and photos on your website are among the small edits included each month, so the website never falls behind the profile. The prices page lists what each plan covers.

If a wrong change keeps coming back

If you correct a detail and Google changes it again, the source is still out there. Search the web for your business name together with the wrong phone number or the wrong hours. The pages that come up may be the ones feeding the change. Fix them, or ask their owners to.

If you find no source and the change keeps returning, contact Business Profile support from the help centre. Give the Business Profile ID, which you find under Advanced settings, with dated screenshots of each change. The Business Profile Help Community is the other route: Google says its volunteer product experts can sometimes escalate a case.