Why Your Google Business Profile Views Have Dropped

Hannah Borchik

It’s not you. It’s Google. Recently, you might have noticed a decline in views of your Google Business Profile (GBP) listings. While these drops are significant, rest assured that you have done nothing wrong. Your GBP view data accuracy is actually improving due to a change in the way Google counts GBP views. In this post, I answer questions that you might have if you manage GBP listings. Meanwhile, Reputation has already taken steps to make sure that our clients transition to the new way Google is tracking GBP views.

What Exactly Are GBP Views?

GBP views – also known as impressions – are the number of times users view your GBP listing. Views are an important measure of your GBP listing’s visibility on Google. A GBP listing is an important ranking signal in local search. So, businesses (including Reputation) pay very close attention to views as a metric.

What Did Google Change about GBP Views?

In February 2023, Google changed the way GBP views are counted. Here’s the scoop:

As a result, only a percentage of views are actually being reported compared to previous reports.

What Does This Change to GBP Views Mean, and Why Is This Change Good?

Let’s walk through an example of how views are changing:




In the above example:

Getting only one view is clearly a more accurate reflection of user search behavior, as the user only interacted purposefully with the Bougainvillea Barbados once in the above example. This update to the reporting shows a clearer user intent story and is a reflection of a business’ real audience. 

The benefit: you get a more accurate understanding of views that matter – views that could lead to an action, such as a click to call a business, visit a website, or get directions to a business. Put another way: Google is now focusing only on quality views. 

What You Should Do

Going forward, it will be important to break up your reporting: views/impressions prior to February 2023 and views/impressions post-February 2023. At Reputation, we are already doing this for our clients. We have you covered! 

Other Google API Reporting Changes

You may have noticed additional changes to some of the GBP reporting in Google and Reputation. In addition to the change in views, Google deprecated a number of insights in February 2023. As a result, some of our insights in Reputation have not been updated to gather new data after February 2023:

These deprecated insight widgets will be removed and replaced, so we recommend downloading historical data for the affected widgets. Read more about Google’s deprecation schedule and details here

Contact Reputation

To get found and chosen on Google, contact Reputation. As part of our comprehensive reputation management services, we maximize our clients’ visibility across the Google ecosystem.

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