Do I need a website if I have a Google Business Profile?
The short answer
Not strictly, but they do different jobs. Your Google Business Profile helps people find you on Google Maps. Your website is where they look at your work and decide, and it's the link you put on your profile, your ads and your messages.
And since March 2024, Google no longer gives you a free website inside your profile, so the profile alone is just a listing.
Key facts
- Your website on your profile
- Google lets you add your website link to your Business Profile. Source: Google: Edit your Business Profile (website and chat)
- Google's free websites
- Turned off in March 2024. Source: Google (archived January 2024): Business Profile websites
- What customers do next
- After reading positive reviews, 54% visit the business's website (BrightLocal, 2026). Source: BrightLocal: Local Consumer Review Survey 2026
- AI for local recommendations
- 45% of consumers now use ChatGPT or other AI tools for them, up from 6% a year earlier (BrightLocal, 2026). Source: BrightLocal: Local Consumer Review Survey 2026
- Small businesses with a website
- Only 40% say they have a dedicated business website (BrightLocal, 2025). Source: BrightLocal: SMB Marketing Survey 2025
- How Google ranks local results
- Mainly on relevance, distance and popularity. Source: Google: Tips to improve your local ranking
What your profile does, and what it doesn't
- It can show your website link. Google lets you add it to your Business Profile.
- It can let customers message you by text or WhatsApp, but Google says chat is only available in select regions, and only on a claimed, verified profile.
- It can't be bought: Google says there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.
Google ranks local results mainly on relevance, distance and popularity. Popularity is partly based on how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have.
Why a website still matters
- Customers check it. In BrightLocal's 2026 survey, 54% of people visit a business's website after reading positive reviews, up from 32% in 2019.
- Google is not the only place people look. The share of consumers who use Google for reviews fell from 83% in 2025 to 71% in 2026, while the share using Apple Maps for reviews nearly doubled, from 14% to 27%.
- AI tools are rising fast. 45% of consumers now use ChatGPT or other AI tools for local recommendations, up from 6% a year earlier. And in a BrightLocal study of 800 local searches in ChatGPT (2024), 58% of the sources ChatGPT listed were business websites.
Many small businesses still don't have one: in BrightLocal's 2025 survey of 778 US owners and managers, only 40% said they have a dedicated business website.
Google's free website is gone
If someone tells you to build a free site inside your Google profile, that advice is out of date. Google turned off Business Profile websites in March 2024, and their redirects stopped working on June 10, 2024.
If you're helping your parents' business
If you're the bilingual one in the family helping with a painting, cleaning or flooring business, a website in English plus Spanish or Portuguese does two jobs: English-speaking homeowners can see the work, and your parents can keep answering customers on WhatsApp.
We build that website and run the ads, all over WhatsApp, and your parents get the website preview free in 24 hours. See how it works, or start below.
Sources: Google: Edit your Business Profile (website and chat); Google (archived January 2024): Business Profile websites; BrightLocal: Local Consumer Review Survey 2026; BrightLocal: SMB Marketing Survey 2025; Google: Tips to improve your local ranking; BrightLocal: Uncovering ChatGPT Search Sources (2024, 800 searches)
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