Short answer. If your customers do not come to your home, hide your address and show the areas you serve instead. Google’s guidance says a service-area business should hide its business address from customers. If customers do visit you at a staffed address during set hours, keep it visible. Either way, the address you give Google privately still has to be real.
The two kinds of profile
Google treats a business one of two ways. A storefront has a place customers visit: a shop, a clinic, an office with someone there during posted hours. The address is shown on the map. A service-area business goes to the customer, or works from home and takes calls, email or video: a plumber, a cleaner, a designer. It shows the areas it serves, and the address stays hidden.
Side by side
Storefront or service-area business
| Storefront | Service-area business | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it suits | Customers visit you at a staffed address | You go to customers, or work from home |
| Address on the map | Shown | Hidden |
| What customers see | A pin and your opening hours | The areas you serve |
| Examples | A shop, a clinic | A plumber, a cleaner, a designer |
Source: Google Business Profile Help, read 2026-10-09.
Why hide a home address
You may not want strangers knocking on your front door, and Google would rather not send customers to a house where nobody is expecting them. Showing a home address on the map can also confuse customers who then expect a shop.
What hiding it changes, and what it does not
- The pin disappears from your public profile; the areas you serve appear instead.
- You can still appear for searches in the areas you serve; the address is only hidden from the public profile.
- Your name, categories, website, hours, reviews and posts do not change.
- After an address change the profile can be reviewed again, so make the change on purpose and look at the profile a day or two later.
How to check yours
- Search your business name while signed in to the account that manages the profile.
- Open Edit profile, then Business information.
- Look at the location setting: is the address shown to customers, or hidden with service areas set?
- Compare it with the real situation: do customers visit you there during set hours?
- Keep the service areas to places you can reach within about two hours of driving.
What we did
Long Square Studio works from a home office in North Vancouver and does not see clients there, so our profile is a service-area business with the address hidden. After we changed it, we checked the profile and it stayed visible. We have not measured views against the old setting, so we do not claim a result either way.
A few common questions
Will hiding my address hurt my ranking?
We have no figures to say it will or will not. Google’s own help describes the setup as the correct one for a business that does not serve customers at its address, so follow the rule rather than guessing at rankings.
Can I keep my address public if I work from home?
Google’s guidance is that a service-area business should hide it. A business with a real storefront customers visit can show it, and can add a service area too.
Can I have both a visible address and service areas?
Yes. Google describes this as a hybrid business, such as a garage that also does roadside calls.
How far can my service area reach?
Google says it shouldn’t extend farther than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based.
Is this safe to change myself?
Yes, it takes a few minutes in the profile editor, but check the profile the next day, and ask someone to help if the profile is verified through a method you cannot repeat.
Sources
Google’s page, read 9 October 2026. It changes, so check it before you act.
