Google Business Profile Q&A Is Gone: Get Into Ask Maps

What happened to Q&A

For years your Google Business Profile had a block called Questions and answers. Anyone could ask, anyone could answer, and you could post your own. Google shut down the tools behind it in November 2025 and started taking the section off profiles that December. You can no longer post new questions or answers.

Customers did not stop asking. Now they ask Google Maps, and Google's AI writes the answer. In the Maps app it is called Ask Maps. You do not get to type that answer. You do get to shape what it reads.

Why twenty minutes here still pays you back

Try this before you touch anything. For one week, keep a tally of the calls, texts and messages that are really the same five questions. Do you take card. Do you come out to my side of town. How soon can you get here. Do I need to be home. What does it cost just to come look.

Add up those minutes, then put your own hourly number next to them. In our experience across 2,300+ profiles, the total is bigger than owners guess, and the fix is one sitting at the kitchen table. You answer each question once, in public, and it keeps answering for you after that.

This is the Local Guide Method in small form. Your customers do your SEO for you. Ask Maps reads your reviews when it writes an answer, so the words your customers use about you end up answering the next customer.

Write down the five questions you answer every week

Take your tally from the week and pick the five that come up most.

1. Write each question the way a customer would type it, not the way you would say it in a meeting. Use do you work on tankless water heaters, not service capabilities.
2. Write the answer right under it, the way you would say it on the phone.
3. Give it a week, then add any question you got asked in the meantime.

Then check each answer against this list.

• Put the answer in the first sentence. Yes, no, or the number. Explain after that.
• One question per answer. Two questions in one block is a wall of words nobody reads.
• Use real detail where you have it. Named towns, named brands you service, your normal response window.
• Skip the sales pitch. Someone asking about you is already close to calling, and a pitch reads like dodging.
• Never put a customer name, address or anything private in a public answer.
• End with the next step. Call, book, or send a photo to get a rough price.

Put each answer where Ask Maps reads it

Google has not published a full list of what Ask Maps reads. Your profile and your reviews are a sure thing. Your website is a good bet, and it is the one place you fully control. So put each answer in more than one spot.

1. A FAQ section on your website. Your five questions as headings, each answer right under it. One page or one block on your home page is enough.
2. Your business description and service descriptions. Work the plain answers in. If people ask whether you come to their town, name the towns you serve. If they ask about tankless water heaters, list tankless water heaters as a service.
3. One GBP post per question. Put the question in the first line and the answer in the next two. Five questions is five posts, which covers more than a month.
4. Photos that show the answer. If people ask about parking, post a photo of the lot. If they ask what the inside looks like, show the inside. A photo answers some questions faster than a paragraph.
5. Your review replies, where it fits. If a customer says you got there in an hour, a reply that says you cover the whole county puts one more answer on the record. Do not force it into every reply.

Check what Ask Maps says about you

This replaces the old job of reading the questions section. Open the Google Maps app on your phone, tap Ask Maps, and ask your five questions with your business name in them. Does [your business name] work on tankless water heaters? Then read what comes back. Ask Maps started on phones, so use the app, not your computer.

When an answer is wrong, you cannot edit it, and there is nobody to argue with. Find where it probably came from and fix that. Your hours, your description, your services, your website FAQ. Then ask again next month.

When an answer is right, that is your sign the work is paying off.

A ten minute monthly habit

• Open the Maps app and ask Ask Maps your five questions about your own business.
• Fix the source of anything it got wrong, same day if you can.
• Check that your hours, description and services still match what you would say on the phone.
• Add one new question, and its answer, from whatever people asked you most this month. Put it on your website and in one post.

If you are not sure what else your profile is missing, run a free profile audit and start with whatever it flags first. Small jobs like this one are what separate a profile that sits there from a profile that brings you work.

Idea spark: Chris Koerner and guest Aaron on The Koerner Office podcast.

Quick answers

Did Google remove Q&A from Business Profiles?

Yes. Google shut down the Q&A tools for software in November 2025 and began removing the questions section from profiles in December 2025. You can no longer post new questions or answers on your profile.

What is Ask Maps?

It is Google's AI in the Maps app. A customer asks a question about a place in plain words, and Ask Maps writes the answer from what Google knows about it, including the profile and its reviews.

Can I edit what Ask Maps says?

Not directly. You change the sources it reads: your hours, description, services, posts and website. Then ask it again to check.

Where should my FAQ live now?

On your website, plus your Business Profile description, services and posts.