Google turned off its free Business Profile websites in March 2024: what to do if your listing still points at one

What happened to Google Business Profile websites?

For years, Google let a business build a simple one-page website from inside its Business Profile, hosted free at a business.site address. Many contractors used it as their only site. On February 29, 2024, Search Engine Journal reported a notice from Google saying that in March 2024, websites made with Google Business Profiles would be turned off, and that customers visiting the site would be redirected to the Business Profile instead. Search Engine Land reported on March 5, 2024 that the sites were no longer available and were being redirected to Google Maps.

One honest note about sourcing. We looked for Google's own help article announcing the change and could not locate it when we researched this page in October 2026. What is above comes from two trade publications quoting Google's notice, and we have written it that way rather than presenting it as Google's words read directly. If you have the original notice in your Business Profile email, it is the better source.

What did the redirect do, and when did it stop?

According to the Search Engine Journal report, a visitor who typed or clicked your old business.site address was sent to your Business Profile instead of a dead page, and that redirect would work until June 10, 2024. The purpose was to give owners a few months to put something else in place. After that date, the press reports say, the redirect would stop. Search Engine Land quoted an updated Google help page saying that after June 10, 2024, customers would get a Page not found error when they tried to visit the site.

What a visitor sees at an old address today is something you should check yourself rather than take from us: open the old address in a private browser window and see where you land. If it is an error page, every place that still carries that address is sending people nowhere. If it still resolves somewhere, do not count on it staying that way; the vendor has told you the product is gone.

How do you know whether you had one?

You had a Business Profile website if your web address ended in business.site, or if you remember building your site from the Website tab inside Google My Business or the Business Profile manager without ever buying hosting. If you never registered a domain and never paid a builder, and your "website" was free, this was probably it.

The address can survive long after the site, because it was typed into a lot of places by hand. Look for it in:

• The website field on your Google Business Profile itself.
• Your Bing Places and Apple Business listings, Yelp, and any directory you claimed.
• Your Facebook, Instagram and Nextdoor bios.
• Google Ads or Local Services Ads, if you ran them.
• Your email signature, invoices and quote templates.
• Truck lettering, yard signs, business cards and door hangers.
• The QR code on anything printed.

Search your company name plus "business.site" as well. If a directory copied the address years ago, that search tends to find it.

What should you do if your listing still points at one?

1. Register a domain under your company's name. Not through a vendor's account; at a registrar you log into. This is the address you will never have to change again. Our guide on buying a domain name for your business walks through it.
2. Put a real site on it. Even a short one. Your services, your service area, your phone number, your hours, a few photos of your work, and a quote form that reaches someone who checks it. The options are in the next two sections.
3. Update the website field on your Business Profile. Sign in to the profile, edit the business information, and replace the old address. If you have lost access to the profile, our guide on verifying your Google Business Profile explains how to get it back.
4. Replace the address everywhere else on the list above. Directories first, because search engines and AI assistants cross-check them, then social bios, then print as it comes up for reprinting.
5. Check the profile while you are in there. Categories, service area, hours and phone number drift over time. Our guide on Google Business Profile for contractors covers what each field should say, and Google Business Profile mistakes covers what to undo.

If you would rather have someone else look, our instant website checkup reads your site and listings and reports what points where. A dead website link on a profile is one of the first things it finds.

What should the replacement site have?

The free Business Profile site was one page. Its replacement does not have to be large, but it should do the job the old one could not: answer the questions a customer asks before calling, and give search engines and AI assistants specific text to read. At minimum:

• A page per main service, in plain words, with what it includes and what affects the price.
• Your service area, named town by town, so a search for your trade in a town you serve has somewhere to land.
• Your phone number near the top of each page, clickable on a phone.
• A quote form that lands in a CRM or an inbox someone checks the same day.
• Photos of your own work, not stock images.
• Your license and insurance details where your state requires or your customers expect them.

What a contractor website needs goes through each page and why it matters.

Builder or a site you own?

The free site taught a hard lesson: a website that lives inside someone else's product lives as long as the product does. The replacement can be a builder such as Wix or Squarespace, which is the fastest and cheapest way to get something live this week, or a site built on your own hosting under your own domain, which costs more up front and moves with you. The honest comparison, including what each builder lets you export if you leave, is in website builder versus custom website.

Whichever you choose, two rules carry over from this episode. Register the domain yourself, so the address outlives whatever is behind it. And keep your own copy of every page's text and photos, so the next move is a project and not a loss. If you want a site that is yours outright, with the domain, hosting and files in your company's name and forms that feed your CRM, that is what our websites service builds.

The profile itself is still the asset

It helps to separate the two things that shared a name. The free website is gone. The Business Profile is not; it is still the listing that shows your company in Google Search and Maps, still holds your reviews, and Google's Business Profile page still says a Business Profile is free to create. For many service businesses the profile is where the first call comes from, and the website's job is to back it up: to be the place a customer goes when they want more than the profile shows.

So the fix is not only replacing a link. It is making sure the profile is verified, owned by the company's own Google account rather than a former employee's or an agency's, filled in completely, and pointed at a site that answers questions. Then the profile and the site work together: the profile gets the click, the site gets the quote request, and both are yours.

A short checklist

1. Open your old business.site address in a private window and note what happens.
2. Register a domain in the company's name, or confirm the one you have is registered to you.
3. Put a site on it with your services, area, phone, photos and a quote form.
4. Replace the website field on your Business Profile.
5. Replace the address on Bing, Apple, Yelp, social bios, ads, email signatures and invoices.
6. Queue the print items for the next reprint.
7. Run the instant website checkup a week later to confirm nothing still points at the old address.

Frequently asked questions