A customer shows up at your location because Google said you’re open — but you’re not. Now, you’ve got an annoyed customer and a potential negative review brewing.
Keeping your Google Business Profile hours accurate for your store locations is important for customer satisfaction, local SEO, and revenue. Inaccurate hours can sink your search rankings faster than you can say, “Sorry, we’re closed.”
In this guide, we’ll walk you through exactly how to update your business hours on Google, tackle common headaches (like Google’s notorious auto-updates), and show you how to leverage your hours for better search visibility.
Why Keeping Accurate Business Hours on Google Matters
Accurate business hours on Google directly impact your bottom line, with 76% of local searches on a smartphone resulting in a store visit within 24 hours.
When your hours are consistently correct, Google’s algorithm takes notice through customer feedback, local data, and automated systems — and considers your business more trustworthy. This translates directly to better visibility in local search results. The search giant has confirmed that profile completeness and accuracy are ranking factors, so updating your hours is a high-impact SEO tactic hiding in plain sight.
Customers see your hours on Google and expect them to be correct. If they arrive at your store to find locked doors, that’s a missed sale and a lost customer. Google’s “Popular Times” feature shows users when you’re busiest so they can plan their visit during less hectic times.
Beyond frustrated customers, inaccurate hours can trigger negative reviews, decreased trust in your brand’s reliability, and loss of potential customers to competitors with more accurate information. Remember: in local search, your Google Business Profile often makes your first impression. Make it count with something as simple as correct hours.
Step-by-Step Guide to Changing Your Business Hours on Google
Updating your business hours on Google doesn’t require a tech wizard. Follow these straightforward steps and you’ll have accurate hours posted in minutes.
1. Sign in to Your Google Business Profile Account
First things first — you need access. Head to business.google.com and sign in with the Google account that manages your business listings. If you’re part of a marketing team, make sure multiple team members have access to avoid scrambling when someone’s on vacation.
2. Select the Location You Want to Manage
For multi-location businesses, this step is crucial. From your dashboard, you’ll see all the locations you manage. Simply click on the specific business location you need to update. If you’re managing dozens of locations, use the search bar at the top to quickly find the right one by typing in the city or street name.
3. Click ‘Edit Profile’ and Choose ‘Business Information’
Once you’ve selected your location, look for the “Edit profile” button on the left sidebar. After clicking, you’ll see several categories of information you can edit. Select “Business information” to access your hours.
This section contains all the crucial NAP (Name, Address, Phone) data that Google uses to rank your business, so while you’re here, verify that everything else is accurate, too.
4. Update Your Main Business Hours
You’ll see your current hours displayed in a weekly format. Click the pencil icon to edit. From here, you can:
- Set different hours for each day of the week
- Mark specific days as “Closed”
- Create split hours (like being open 9-12 and then 1-5)
- Copy hours from one day to multiple days with the “Copy hours” feature
These are your standard, week-to-week hours. Special events and holidays require the next step.
5. Add Special Hours for Holidays and Events
This is where many businesses drop the ball. Click on “Special hours” to add exceptions for major holidays, seasonal changes, special events, temporary closures, and renovations.
Google often provides suggestions for upcoming holidays, making this process even easier. Don’t skip this: it’s one of the biggest frustrations for customers.
6. Review and Save Changes
Before hitting that save button, double-check all of your updates. Confirm that AM/PM designations are correct (a common mistake that leads to showing your business is open at 2 AM instead of 2 PM).
Once you’re satisfied, click “Save.” Google typically publishes these changes within minutes, though sometimes it can take up to 24 hours for all systems to update. After saving, your customers will see the accurate information when they search for your business or view your listing on Google Maps.
5 Common Issues and Mistakes with Business Hours on Google
Most businesses experience at least one significant customer complaint due to inaccurate Google business hours. Even savvy marketing teams run into snags with Google Business hours. Here’s how to tackle the most frequent headaches.
1. Forgetting to Change Your Hours
Seasonal changes, company events, and staffing adjustments all impact when your doors are open. Yet, many businesses forget to update Google until after customers have already been inconvenienced.
Set calendar reminders for seasonal hour shifts, holiday schedules, special events, back-to-school changes, and daylight saving times. You could even assign a specific team member as your “hours czar,” who’s responsible for keeping everything current.
2. Dealing With Google Auto-Updating Hours
Google sometimes takes it upon itself to update your hours based on user suggestions, third-party information, patterns from location data, or crowdsourced information. When Google makes these changes, they sometimes send an email notification, but not always. Check your Google business listing weekly to catch any unauthorized updates.
If you find incorrect changes, immediately update the hours and choose “This is the correct information” when prompted. This helps train Google to trust your input over others.
3. Ignoring Special Hours for Holidays and Events
Nothing frustrates customers more than driving to your location on a holiday only to find your business is closed. Yet, many businesses neglect to set special hours for holidays.
Google makes this easy with its holiday suggestions feature. Take 15 minutes at the start of each quarter to review Google’s suggested holidays and set all upcoming special hours. Even if you’re open during normal hours on a holiday, marking this explicitly prevents Google from assuming you’re closed.
4. Inconsistent Hours Across Platforms
Your opening hours on Google don’t match your website. Your website doesn’t match your door sign. Your social media says something else entirely. It’s a recipe for customer confusion.
Create a single source of truth for your business hours and ensure all platforms reflect it. This includes your Google Business Profile, website, social media profiles, Yelp and other review sites, and print materials and signage. Consistency across platforms is good for customers and sends strong trust signals to search engines.
5. Difficulties Updating Multiple Locations
For businesses with dozens or hundreds of locations, updating hours can become a logistical nightmare, especially when regional variations come into play.
To make it a bit simpler, leverage bulk upload tools when possible. Google allows spreadsheet uploads for mass changes, which can save hours of clicking through individual listings.
Consider investing in location management software that pushes updates to multiple platforms simultaneously — the time savings alone often justifies the cost.
Optimizing Business Hours on Google for Local SEO
Your Google Business Profile is one of your most overlooked ranking opportunities for multi-location brands. Here are some ways to use it to boost local search visibility.
Best Practices for Setting Main and Special Hours
Beyond just accuracy, the way you structure your hours can impact both customers and search algorithms. These details help Google understand your business patterns better and can improve how you appear in time-specific searches like “restaurants open now.”
- Include buffer times if needed — if you technically close at 5 PM but stop accepting new customers at 4:30 PM, make that clear.
- Be specific with minute-by-minute times rather than rounding (9:27 AM instead of “around 9:30”).
- Use the 24-hour open feature for appropriate businesses rather than repeatedly setting identical hours.
- Create descriptive names for special hours periods (“Holiday Season Hours” is better than just “Special Hours”).
Using Consistent Hours Across Multiple Locations
When managing multiple locations, consistency becomes both a challenge and an opportunity.
Start by creating location groups with similar hours of operation to streamline management and document regional variations and their justifications. To make it easier for your staff and customers to follow, implement standardized naming conventions for special hours across all locations. Use bulk update tools for company-wide changes while preserving necessary local exceptions.
Leveraging Business Hours to Improve Search Visibility
Your hours can actually help you capture more specific search traffic. If you’re open when competitors aren’t — like early mornings, late nights, or Sundays — highlight these extended hours in your business description. Consider creating location-specific landing pages that prominently feature unique hours to improve relevance for local searches. When applicable, add “early opening” or “late closing” in your business attributes to help people discover your business.
Monitor search trends for time-specific queries in your industry and align your hours strategically. Remember that Google increasingly favors businesses that match not just what customers are searching for, but when they’re searching for it. Those unusual hours might just be your competitive edge in local Google search results.
Keep Your Google Business Profile Accurate No Matter What
Managing your business hours on Google Business Profile is just one piece of your local digital presence that impacts customer experience and search performance.
When you’re juggling dozens or hundreds of locations, manual updates become unrealistic. Mistakes happen. Consistency suffers. Customer complaints increase.
While Google offers basic tools for managing your listings, they often fall short for complex, multi-location businesses with changing hours, seasonal adjustments, and regional variations.
The brands that win local search don’t wait for a negative review or customers not knowing your correct hours during a holiday rush. They build systems that guarantee accuracy while freeing their teams to focus on strategy rather than maintenance.
See how Chatmeter helps multi-location brands manage their Google Business Profiles with ease. Our platform allows you to update hours across hundreds of locations in minutes, prevents unauthorized changes, and ensures consistency across all digital platforms.