How to Change Business Hours on Google – Tips to Keep Your Listing Accurate and Updated

One of the most common things business owners wonder about is how to change business hours on Google and edit their Google Business Profile hours (GBP), formerly Google My Business.

This guide will show you how to make these updates step-by-step and ensure your listing stays accurate. It also highlights some additional features of Google business hours you may not have known about.

TLDR:

• You can easily update your business hours in Google Business Profile (formerly GMB) by editing the “Business hours” section.
• Google allows setting main hours, breaks, special hours (holidays), and category-specific hours (like delivery, happy hour, or access hours).
• Only main business hours affect local rankings; additional hours (like online service hours) do not.
• Businesses can also mark profiles as temporarily or permanently closed, or set “open with no main hours.”
• Keep hours accurate, since Google may auto-adjust them or accept user edits if it suspects incorrect info.

Many business owners also report frustration when Google keeps changing their business hours unexpectedly, which makes keeping them accurate even more important.

Quick Steps to Change Business Hours on Google

If you’re looking for a quick guide on how to change business hours on Google, here’s how:

Set main business hours:

1. Sign in to your Google account that manages your Business Profile.
2. Click “Edit Profile” for the location you wish to update.
3. Go to the ‘Info’ tab and locate the Business hours section.
4. Click the pencil icon next to “Business hours” to edit.
5. Use the dropdowns to set or edit your hours (mark days as “closed” if needed).
6. Click “Save” to confirm your changes.

Understand that there are different types of business hours you can set for your business. First, set your main business hours. These are the hours during which your business is operational, either welcoming customers to your location or providing services at your customers’ locations. Next, set your category-specific hours, such as happy hours, takeout hours, or access hours. You should also set hours for holidays, special schedules, or breaks during the day. Keeping your hours up to date ensures that your customers always know when you are available.

To help you, this step-by-step guide on how to set your Google business hours includes screenshots for each step, so you can follow along visually as you update your business hours on Google.

To set your main hours on Google Business Profile (GBP) follow these steps:

1. Go to your Google Business Profile dashboard.
2. Click Edit Profile.
3. Scroll down until you see “Business hours” > click the pencil icon to open the editor box.
4. Make sure “Open with main hours” is selected.
5. Set your hours – note you can mark certain days as “closed.”
6. Click “save.”

Can You Set Your Google Listing to Be Closed for Part of the Day?

If your business takes breaks during the day, say your office is closed from 12pm – 1pm for lunch, you can set that on your business profile so it shows as “Closed” during that time. Simply set your morning hours in the first two dropdown boxes, click the plus sign, and then set your afternoon hours in the second set of boxes. You can set as many of these breaks as you want—just click the “plus” sign to add more hour blocks.

Open With No Main Hours

You will see in the business hours section there is an option to set “Open with no main hours” – this means your business listing will be live on maps and search but no business hours will show. This is NOT the same as “open 24/7.” There is an option to add “24 hours” within the “open at” and “closed at” drop-downs in the main business hours section. 

Mark Your Google Listing as “Temporarily Closed” or “Permanently Closed”

You can also mark your Google listing as “temporarily closed” or “permanently closed” in the business hours section. Pay close attention to only check those off if they apply to your business location, as this will reflect on your profile in maps and search.

Customize Google Business Hours by Category

Now, there are options to set other types of business hours depending on your business category. These will only show up based on your primary business category. These will show up under the normal business hours section.

For example, if you are a storage facility, and you have separate hours when the office is open for customers to talk to employees vs. hours when customers can access their units, you can set those hours separately as “access hours.”

Similarly, with restaurants, you can set additional hours such as delivery hours, takeout hours, and even happy hours that will show directly on the profile.

Google Business Additional Hours

Other business categories offer different types of additional hours, including “online service hours”.  These appear under the main hours when a user clicks “More hours” on the profile.

When this originally launched in 2020, it seemed like it might be a good solution for businesses that answer phones after hours (when their physical location is closed), but it’s important to note that these hours don’t change the fact that your business will still appear as closed in the search results unless you update your main set of hours.

Can Additional Hours Impact Rankings?

We tested this and found that setting separate ‘Online service hours’ did not influence rankings at all, on both SAB and storefront listings. The only hours that influence GBP rankings are “main hours” – which are what dictate when your business is marked as “open” or “closed.”

Google Business Profile Special Hours

You can also let users know when your business will be closed for holidays, vacations, or special days. These are called “special hours” and are located in the GBP dashboard below the normal business hours section. Keeping these up-to-date is critical because it helps customers know when you’re open or closed.

Make sure to always keep your business hours on Google updated, so they are an accurate reflection of when your business is open and closed. This ensures customers can easily contact you and promotes a positive experience. If you need help learning how to change business hours on Google, this guide provides everything you need to know to ensure your hours are accurate and up-to-date.

When you update your hours, Google will add a message to the profile to confirm with users that the business has updated and confirmed the hours.

Watch Out for User Edits on Google Maps

You should always be aware of what your listing is showing to users in maps and the local pack. In some cases, when Google is unsure if your business hours are correct, they will display “hours may be incorrect” above the hours and prompt users to make edits if they believe the hours are incorrect. This increases the chance a user makes an edit to your profile that Google approves, which could leave your business showing incorrect hours to users if you don’t catch the edit.

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