Greg Gifford, a veteran automotive and local SEO, published a hard warning to vendors suggesting that they tell automotive dealerships to set up separate Google Business Profile department listings for separate services. He said, do not, do not, do this and that it can lead to your Google Business Profiles being suspended and removed from Google Search and Google Maps.
Greg Gifforf posted this on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago. This seems to come after Google removed departments from these listings as a new feature?
I was notified of this in mid-November but I am not clear exactly what this means - here are those posts:
@GoogleMyBiz dealership listings are now missing departments on their main GBP. What is happening? First Google Cars For Sale is removed now departments. Even though they are listed on each department listing as located within the main listing. @rustybrick @GregGifford @JohnMu
— Dealer Micro Sites (@microsites) November 18, 2025
is this a bug or intentional or you dont know?
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) November 27, 2025
Still trying to understand this. I see the following examples pic.twitter.com/rWMaD5gKPE
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) December 1, 2025
coming back to this, still trying to understand what changed. I see the same thing that screenshots from two years ago show https://t.co/UZlpyGAUAv pic.twitter.com/cvRkaAbq7S
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) December 26, 2025
But I didn't hear back. So I am obviously missing something...
But now Greg posted on LinkedIn:
Auto dealers -I found ANOTHER automotive vendor talking about setting up separate Google Business Profile department listings for separate services (oil change, tires, etc)... And this one just released a white paper talking about the results.
DO NOT fall for this crap. It's really far over the line of breaking the rules. If you get caught doing this, all the repercussions fall on your dealership, not the vendor who told you it was a good idea. You'll get every profile suspended - including your primary profile, which means you'll lose massive amounts of visibility in search results. It's also likely that when you get your main profile restored, you'll have lost a portion of your reviews.
Dealerships are only allowed to set up department GBPs for the service department, parts department, and body shop. If you're a Stellantis dealer or a GM dealer, you can also set up a profile for each individual brand (the rules allow it, but you shouldn't go that far).
ANY other department profiles are against Google's rules and you risk MAJOR problems down the road. Keep in mind - it's also highly likely that the vendors suggesting this will get caught, and every dealership they did it for will then get found and penalized as well.
Don't risk your business on a stupid strategy like this!
So set them up as services and not departments... Greg later explained, "make sure the name starts with "[brand] service" and no the dealership name. Use the service phone number, and make sure the website link points to the service page. be sure the primary category is a service category - and you should be good."
There is a huge thread of responses to what Greg posted, so check out the thread.
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
