Google added a new prohibition to the naming section of its Business Profile help documentation: a listing can no longer show a business name written out twice, once in each of two scripts or languages. Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz reported the change on August 10, filing it under the heading “Repeated Bilingual Names / Script Transliterations.” The rule closes a workaround that owners in bilingual markets have used for years to keep a second-language version of their name on file.
Google’s own language on the point is direct. A name that repeats in two scripts or two languages is barred, and the guidance adds that the restriction holds even when the storefront sign itself displays both versions. The disallowed pattern mirrors the examples Google published: a Latin-script brand name paired with its transliteration, such as Kafiex next to its katakana rendering, or Burger King followed by its Japanese equivalent. A single, primary-script version, just Kafiex or just Burger King on its own, is what the guidelines now define as compliant.
This distinction lands hardest on businesses operating in genuinely bilingual or non-Latin-script markets, where a name shown in two scripts is not a growth tactic. It is how the sign over the door has always read. A shop in a market that pairs a Latin-alphabet brand with a local-script customer base built its signage, and its listing, around both versions being visible together. Google’s guidance now treats that same dual presentation as a violation, regardless of the market’s own naming conventions.
That creates real tension with the rest of Google’s own guidance. The source report notes that owners have historically pointed to storefront photographs to defend keeping both scripts in their profile name, a defense that only works if Google’s broader naming standard is anchored to what the physical sign actually says. This rule carves out an exception to that anchor. For a repeated bilingual name specifically, storefront evidence no longer counts, even though matching real-world signage is the premise the surrounding guidance otherwise rests on.
Business name violations already rank among the common triggers for a Business Profile suspension, which makes this a practical risk rather than a wording footnote. An owner who kept a dual-script name because it matched the storefront, believing that made the listing compliant, can now be judged in violation of a rule that says the opposite. Hiroko Imai, who first flagged the update on LinkedIn, noted that Google used Japanese examples but that the restriction is not Japan-specific. It applies anywhere a business pairs a Latin name with a second script, including English paired with Arabic, Chinese, or Cyrillic writing systems.
For any agency or in-house team managing listings across multiple markets, the fix is procedural rather than technical. Pull every profile that carries a name in more than one script this week, and confirm which version stands as the single, primary listing name. Google frames business name violations as a common suspension trigger. A suspended local listing does not just lose ranking. It disappears from the map pack and local finder surfaces where nearby customers actually find a business.
Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz first reported the Google Business Profile naming rule change on August 10, 2026.
