What does a Google Business Profile audit check?

A full audit checks each location’s basic information (name, address, phone, website, description), business hours, star rating and review depth, photo coverage, category accuracy, cross-location consistency, and listing health including duplicate pins. This checklist walks through all thirty of those points.

How is this checklist scored?

PlaceOptimizer’s engine weights each miss by severity: a critical issue costs more than a warning, which costs more than an informational note. Every location gets a 0–100 score and the brand rolls up to a single Brand Health Score, with the top issues surfaced first.

Can I run this automatically instead?

Yes. The free audit runs this exact checklist across every location Google shows for your brand, scores each one, and returns a client-ready report in about a minute — no card required.

Is this checklist specific to India?

The signals Google uses are global, but the checklist is tuned for Indian multi-location brands — +91 phone formatting, per-city local-pack competition, and the categories Indian retail, QSR and healthcare chains actually use.

The 30-Point Google Business Profile Audit Checklist

Free tool

The 30-point Google Business Profile audit checklist.

The exact checks Invarya runs on multi-location Indian brands — tick them off for one location, or run all thirty automatically in 60 seconds.

Checklist progress

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Basic information

A phone number is setCriticalEvery profile has a contact number — an empty phone field is a critical trust and conversion gap.
The phone number is a valid Indian formatCriticalNumbers read as a clean +91 XXXXX XXXXX, not a malformed or truncated string.
A full street address is setCriticalA complete address anchors the pin and the local-pack match — a missing address is critical.
A website URL is linkedWarningA live website field feeds Google trust signals and gives searchers a next step.
The description is at least 50 charactersInfoA real description — not an empty or one-line field — gives Google and searchers context.
The city is captured for the pinInfoEach listing resolves to a known city so it competes in the right local market, not a blank one.

Business hours

Business hours are setCriticalA profile with no hours reads as unmaintained — this is a critical miss for a physical store.
Hours are filled for all seven daysWarningEvery day is covered, including weekends and holidays, so "open now" filters surface you correctly.
Hours reflect current, real opening timesInfoStale hours that no longer match the store frustrate customers and erode trust signals.

Ratings & reviews

The star rating is 3.5 or higherCriticalA rating below 3.5 actively suppresses local-pack ranking and deters clicks — treated as critical.
The star rating is 4.0 or higherWarningReaching 4.0+ puts you in the trusted band most searchers filter for.
There are at least 10 reviewsWarningA minimum volume of reviews gives the rating credibility and feeds ranking.
There are at least 50 reviewsInfoA deeper review base is what separates local leaders from listings searchers skip.
Negative reviews are being answeredWarningActive review management — replying to critical reviews — protects the rating and shows Google an engaged owner.

Photos & media

The profile has photosCriticalZero photos is a critical gap — image-less listings look abandoned and convert poorly.
There are at least five photosWarningA small gallery covering storefront, interior and products builds confidence.
There are at least ten photosInfoA fuller set of ten or more photos is the bar leading listings clear.
The gallery covers storefront, interior and productsInfoA mix of exterior, inside and product shots helps customers recognise and choose you.

Categories & attributes

The primary category is specific, not genericWarningA precise primary category (e.g. mattress store, not just "store") is how Google matches you to the right searches.
At least one secondary category is setInfoSecondary categories widen the queries you can rank for without diluting the primary match.

Cross-location consistency

The business name is identical across every locationWarningName variations across outlets confuse Google’s entity matching — every branch should read the same.
The primary category is the same across locationsWarningA brand whose outlets share one primary category presents a single, trustworthy entity.
Locations point to a consistent website domainInfoOne canonical domain (with per-location pages) beats a scatter of different sites.
Phone number formatting is consistentInfoA uniform +91 prefix across every location avoids NAP-mismatch signals.
Address structure follows one pattern across outletsInfoConsistently formatted addresses read as one brand to Google’s entity resolution.

Listing health & duplicates

Every listing is marked operationalCriticalA profile flagged permanently closed is a critical loss — verify each location’s status.
No listing looks abandonedWarningA profile with no photos and almost no reviews reads as neglected and gets deprioritised.
There are no duplicate pins within a kilometreWarningTwo profiles for the same outlet split reviews and ranking — duplicates within ~1 km must be merged.
No two pins overlap at the same coordinatesWarningExactly overlapping pins are almost always a duplicate that needs consolidating.
The overall brand health score is 80 or aboveWarningEvery per-location signal rolls into one 0–100 score — 80+ is the healthy band local leaders sit in.

How the audit turns thirty checks into one score

Each location starts at 100 and loses points for every miss, weighted by severity — a critical gap like a missing phone number or a permanently-closed flag costs the most, a warning like a thin photo gallery costs less, and an informational note the least. The per-location scores then roll into a single Brand Health Score, with extra deductions when names, categories or pins drift across your outlets. The result is one number the whole team can act on, and a ranked list of what to fix first.

Why manual auditing stops working past a few locations

Running this checklist by hand for one store takes a focused ten minutes. Running it for forty stores, every month, is a different job — and the cross-location checks (name drift, duplicate pins, category mismatch) are almost impossible to spot manually because they only appear when you compare listings side by side. That is exactly the gap the audit engine closes: it pulls every location Google shows for your brand, applies all thirty checks, finds the cross-location issues, and scores the whole brand in about a minute.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Review link generatorTurn a Place ID into a direct review link, free. Read more Free auditRun all thirty checks automatically in 60 seconds. Read more How it worksDiscover → Audit → Score → Report, in four steps. Read more

Or run this checklist automatically in 60 seconds.

The free audit applies all thirty checks to every location and scores your whole brand — no card required.

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