Google rewrote its Posts guidelines to cover more than phone numbers. The updated help document now states: “To avoid fraud or abuse, we may remove posts with unverified contact information. This includes phone numbers, email addresses, and social media handles.” That replaces earlier wording that simply barred phone numbers outright: “To avoid the risk of abuse, we do not allow your post content to include a phone number.”
A second, related document was also edited. It now warns that a post containing a phone number “might get rejected if they cannot be verified as being connected to the business on which they are posted,” language that did not previously appear. Local SEO practitioner Hiroko Imai spotted both changes and flagged them on LinkedIn, advising businesses to route contact details through profile fields and CTA buttons rather than post text.
Local business profiles should shift any phone, email or handle mentions out of post copy and into verified profile fields before Google’s filter catches them.
Reported by Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz, citing Hiroko Imai.
