In this guide
Key takeaways
- If customers never come to you, Google's rules say to hide your address. That includes running the business from your house.
- You can list up to 20 service areas by city, ZIP or similar area. The old mile-radius setting is gone.
- Google's guidance is about 2 hours' drive from your base. It's guidance, and Google says larger areas may suit some businesses.
- One profile covers the whole area. Extra profiles per city, or mailbox addresses, break the rules.
- Service areas tell customers where you go. Industry testing says your ranking still leans on where your business is based.
Am I a service-area business?
If you drive to the customer instead of the customer coming to you, yes. That's most of the trades. Google's service area help page and its Business Profile guidelines split businesses three ways:
| Type | What it means | Trade examples |
|---|---|---|
| Service-area business | You go to customers. No one visits your address. | Mobile HVAC, plumbing, pest control, window cleaning, pressure washing, house cleaning |
| Hybrid | Customers can visit your address during posted hours, and you also go to them. | A pool supply store with service techs, a flooring showroom that installs, an appliance shop that does house calls |
| Storefront | Customers come to you. You don’t travel. | Rare in the trades. A walk-in repair counter, for example |
Most owners reading this are the first row. If you have a real showroom or counter that is staffed during your hours, read the hybrid section below.
Should I hide my address on Google?
If customers don't come to your address, yes. Google is blunt about it. Its guidelines say a service-area business should hide its business address, and they use the trades as the example:
"If you're a plumber and run your business from your residential address, clear the address from your Business Profile."
- It follows the rules. Showing a home address customers can’t visit is exactly what the guidelines tell you not to do.
- It protects your family. Nobody needs a pin on your driveway, your kids’ bikes in Street View, or a customer showing up at dinner.
- It stops wasted trips. No one drives to your house expecting a shop.
How many service areas can I add, and how far out?
Google's manage your service areas page gives the limits:
| Rule | What Google says | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| How many | Up to 20 service areas, based on cities, postal codes or other areas you serve | Pick the 20 that matter most, not every hamlet on the map. |
| How far | "shouldn't be more than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based" | Guidance, not a hard cap. The guidelines add that larger areas may be appropriate for some businesses. |
| What kind | Cities, postal codes or similar areas | No mile radius. That setting was replaced years ago, so ignore guides that say "set 25 miles". |
Two hours is the outer edge Google suggests, not a target. A cleaning crew that works 30 minutes out should list the towns 30 minutes out. Listing towns you'd never drive to only leads to calls you have to turn down.
How do I add or change my service areas?
- Open your profileSign in to the Google account that manages it and search your business name on Google, or open the Google Maps app and go to your Business Profile.
- Go to LocationChoose Edit profile, then Location.
- Clear the address if you need toIf customers don't visit you, remove the business address so it doesn't show.
- Edit the service areaNext to Service area, choose edit. Type each city or ZIP code and pick it from the list. Remove any you no longer serve.
- Save and wait for reviewChoose Save. Google says that once approved, service area edits may take up to 48 hours to show on your profile.
Which towns should I list for my trade?
List where you actually want work, weighted to where you already get it. A few patterns we see by trade:
| Trade | How to pick areas | Example list |
|---|---|---|
| HVAC and plumbing | Towns your techs can reach for a same-day emergency | [Base city], [Town 1], [Town 2] and the ZIPs between |
| Pest control | Your route towns, where recurring stops cluster | [ZIP 1], [ZIP 2], [ZIP 3] along your weekly route |
| Window cleaning, pressure washing | Neighborhoods with the homes you want, not every town in reach | [Town 1], [Town 2], [Upscale suburb] |
| House cleaning | Tight area, so crews aren’t driving more than cleaning | [Base city] plus 3-6 nearby towns |
| Roofing | Wider, since jobs are bigger and fewer | Cities across the county, still near the 2-hour guidance |
| Junk removal | Where dump runs stay efficient | Towns within easy reach of the transfer station you use |
More on trade marketing: see our pages for HVAC, plumbing and pest control companies.
Will I rank in every town I list?
Probably not, and it's the biggest surprise for owners. Google's local ranking page names distance as one of its three factors: how far the business is from the person searching. It doesn't say service areas change that.
How you reach farther towns: more reviews, a stronger website and real pages for those towns. The full playbook is in how to rank higher on Google Maps.
Can I make a separate profile for each city?
No. Google says service-area businesses can only have one profile for the whole area that they serve. A profile per city, at a friend’s address or a mailbox, is a fake location. It breaks the rules and puts your real profile at risk.
Real second locations are different. If you open a staffed branch in another town that customers can visit, that location can have its own profile.
Hybrids: if you have a showroom, counter or shop where customers come during posted hours, and you also go to homes, you can show the address and set a service area. Google's guidelines say the location should be staffed by your team and able to receive customers during its stated hours. A garage where you park the trucks doesn't count.
How should my website support my service areas?
Your profile says where you go. Your website can prove it, with a page for each main town. But Google's spam policies call out doorway abuse, including pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page. Thirty copies of the same page with the town name swapped is exactly that.
Do
- Build pages for the towns that matter most
- Show real jobs, photos and reviews from that town
- Mention local specifics: housing age, water, weather, HOAs
- Link each page from a clear service-area menu
- Keep name and phone the same as the profile
Don't
- Clone one page and swap the city name
- Make a page for every ZIP you listed
- Stuff "[trade] [town]" into every sentence
- Add a fake address for each town
- Hide the pages so only Google finds them
A good test: if a homeowner in that town would learn something on that page that the other town pages don’t say, it earns its spot. Want the rest of your profile in shape too? Run through the Google Business Profile checklist.
