Google automatically added WhatsApp chat numbers to a large number of Google Business Profiles during the week of June 11, 2026, and sent owners notification emails saying the Chat field had been updated. The problem: in many cases the number populated was the business’s main line, a landline that cannot receive WhatsApp messages. Customers tapping the chat option on those profiles would have reached a dead end.
The bug surfaced quickly in Google Business Profile Help forums. Owners reported seeing numbers they did not enter, receiving confusing confirmation emails, and finding that the Chat field could not initially be edited or removed. A Google product expert confirmed in the forum thread that the additions were unintended and that a fix was being deployed. By June 10, profile owners could remove the incorrectly added number through the standard Edit profile flow.
How the Chat field is supposed to work is straightforward: a verified Business Profile owner navigates to Edit profile, then Contact, finds the Chat section, and manually adds either a WhatsApp click-to-chat URL or a mobile number confirmed to receive text messages. The process is opt-in. Numbers entered that way are ones the business has already validated. The bug bypassed that step entirely, pulling a number from existing profile data and activating a messaging channel without the owner’s knowledge or consent.
The operational risk is concrete. A customer who taps a WhatsApp chat button and gets no response does not assume a platform glitch; they assume the business is unresponsive. For multi-location operators who do not monitor each profile individually, a broken chat channel could have gone undetected for days after the initial bug window closed.
The audit every local SEO and multi-location manager should run right now:
- Open Google Business Profile for every managed location.
- Navigate to Edit profile, then Contact, and check the Chat field.
- If a WhatsApp number is listed, verify that it is a mobile number actively monitored for WhatsApp messages, not a landline, VoIP number, or forwarding line.
- If the number cannot receive WhatsApp messages, remove it using the edit flow; the removal path was re-enabled by June 10.
- Confirm the change saved and re-audit within 24 hours to verify the field was not re-populated.
The notification email Google sent during the rollout is worth checking as well. Owners who dismissed it as routine may still have the incorrect Chat field active.
Google has not publicly disclosed how many profiles were affected or what data source the bulk addition drew from. That gap matters for agencies managing hundreds of locations: there is no platform-side report or bulk export that flags profiles with an active Chat field, so the check is manual, profile by profile.
Local SEO teams should treat this as a reminder that Google retains edit access to Business Profile fields and can exercise it, by bug or by design, without prior owner approval. The Chat field is worth adding to any standard profile hygiene checklist going forward.
Reported from Google Business Profile Help forum posts by Business Profile owners and confirmed as a bug being fixed by a Google product expert, week of June 11, 2026.
