Google Business Profile Posting Benchmarks: Which Published Numbers Hold Up

Boomp ResearchMay 26, 202619 min readUpdated November 2, 2026

There is no current public benchmark for how Google Business Profile posts perform, and most of the post statistics we traced do not lead to one. Google removed per-post views and button clicks from its Business Profile API on February 20, 2023, with no replacement. Since September 2026, Google has been rolling out a view count on each post in the owner's own dashboard, covering posts from the past 18 months, but it says those views are not yet available in the API. On November 2, 2026, we read 49 articles returned by six searches about posts and traced every figure about posts in them: 35 of the 76 figures stated as fact named no source, and none of the 11 figures that tie a posting frequency to results led to a study. The numbers that do hold up are five counts of how many businesses post, published in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2026, and two Sterling Sky studies from 2021.

Correction. An earlier version of this page, dated May 26, 2026, reported 4,573 average impressions and a 1.38% engagement rate for Google Business Profile posts. No data we hold supports those figures, and we withdrew them on July 28, 2026. Please do not cite them; if you find them credited to Boomp or to Glow Social, Boomp's former name, they came from our earlier pages, which have since been corrected or retired. We rebuilt this page on November 2, 2026, around a dataset you can download, and the changes are listed under "Changes from earlier versions" below.

What Google measures for posts in 2026

What you want to know	Where Google shows it in 2026	Source, read November 2, 2026
How many people viewed one post	A view count on each post in the Business Profile dashboard, for posts from the past 18 months, with Search and Maps views combined; rolling out since September 2026	Google Small Business Bulletin, September 2026
How many people clicked a post's button	Not per post; post button clicks left the API on February 20, 2023, and Google's new post counts are views, not clicks	API deprecation schedule; Search Engine Journal
Any per-post number in scheduling or reporting software	Not through Google's API, which has had no per-post insights since February 20, 2023, and does not yet carry the new views	API deprecation schedule
Views and clicks on offers	An Offers metric for the whole profile, in the Performance report	Google help: performance and insights
Profile views, searches, calls, website clicks and directions	The Performance report, and the Performance API, whose 12 daily metrics include none for posts	Performance API daily metrics
How long a post stays up	Posts older than six months are archived unless a date range is set	Google help: create and manage posts

Google has not said whether a post view counts people or appearances, so a view count may not equal the number of people reached (Search Engine Journal, September 10, 2026). Google first showed per-post views and clicks in 2018 and removed them from the dashboard in January 2023 (Search Engine Roundtable).

Citation-friendly findings

Each finding names its own sample, so keep the sample and the date when you cite it.

February 20, 2023 is the date Google's Business Profile API stopped providing post views and post button clicks, with no replacement, per Google's API deprecation schedule.
18 months: since September 2026, Google has been rolling out a view count on each post published in the past 18 months, in the Business Profile dashboard, with Search and Maps combined, and it says the counts are not yet available in the API.
35 of 76 (46%) figures stated as fact about Google Business Profile posts named no source, in 27 articles returned by six web searches on November 2, 2026.
18 of the 41 figures that did name a source named one that did not hold up: the study could not be found, did not contain the figure, said something different, or was the wrong source.
0 of 11 published figures that tie a posting frequency or habit to results led to a study.
4 of the 8 figures credited to Google were not in Google's documentation or contradicted it.
10 of 19 articles that say how long a post stays up gave a seven-day figure instead of Google's rule, which archives posts after six months unless they carry a date range; the seven-day rule for update posts ended in January 2021, per Sterling Sky.
22 of 26 articles that recommend a posting frequency say at least once a week, none of the 26 points to a measurement, and Google's posts help gives no frequency.
37% of 286 profiles had no live post from the 90 days before their audit, and 20% had no live posts at all, in Wiremo's audits run by owners from July 16 to October 14, 2026 (a self-selected sample, 53% in India).
17.5% of 2,000 profiles had posted in the previous seven days, and 59.6% had ever posted, in Ben Fisher's February 2019 count of top Local Finder results in 10 large US cities.
277 to 636 views per post, on average by post type, in Sterling Sky's study of 1,037 posts presented in April 2021, the only per-post performance study with a stated sample that we found, made before Google removed post insights.
No measurable ranking change came from one post a week for nine weeks in Sterling Sky's 2021 test of three listings and 441 keywords per location.
0 of 195 Google Business Profile posts Boomp published for its customers from June 1 to July 28, 2026 had per-post views or engagement in Boomp's records.

Suggested citation sentence: "In a November 2, 2026 check by boomp.net of 49 articles returned by six searches, 35 of 76 published claims of fact about Google Business Profile posts named no source." Link to this page and keep the sample size and the date.

What we found in published post statistics

We ran six searches an owner or a writer might run, read every English article we could reach in the results, and recorded each number about posts in its exact words. We then followed each named or linked source, and checked figures about how long posts last, and figures credited to Google, against Google's own pages. Of the 98 figures, 76 were stated as fact or as Google's guidance, and 22 were posting advice.

Kind of figure stated as fact	Figures	Named no source	Led to a measurement with a stated sample
Performance: views, clicks, engagement, traffic or rankings	47	17	10
How many businesses post, or how they post	6	3	6
Posting frequency, stated as fact or as Google's advice	4	2	0
How long a post stays up	19	13	Checked against Google's help instead: 9 match it, and 10 give a seven-day figure in place of its rule
All	76	35	16

The 10 performance figures that led to a measurement all led to one of three sources: Sterling Sky's study of 1,037 posts (5 figures), Sterling Sky's 2021 ranking test (4) and an agency case study from 2026 (1). The 6 figures about how many businesses post, or how they post, all led to real counts, but 5 of them led to counts published from 2018 to 2021.

Where eight of these figures lead

Figure as published	Credited to	Where it leads
Posts expire after seven days	Google's help, or no one	Google's help says posts are archived after six months unless a date range is set; the seven-day rule for update posts ended in January 2021
Google suggests or encourages weekly posting	Google	Google's posts help gives no posting frequency
Only 17% of businesses use Google Posts	A 2026 study, or no one	Two older counts: about 17% of 2,000 Google Maps listings had ever posted in a 2018 hand count, and 17% of the locations of 276 multi-location brands were posting in SOCi's 2021 report
The average post gets fewer than 20 views	Sterling Sky, or no one	Sterling Sky's study of 1,037 posts reported average views of 277 to 636 per post type
Real photos get 5.6 times more clicks than stock photos	Sterling Sky, or no one	Sterling Sky's study, presented in April 2021: 2.13 average clicks for posts without stock photos, 0.38 with them
Posting twice a week brings about 67% more profile views than posting weekly	BrightLocal, with a link	The linked BrightLocal insights study does not mention posts
750 or more characters bring 2.5 times more impressions	A statistics page, with a link	The linked page's figure is about business descriptions of 750 or more characters, not posts
Post engagement averages 1% to 3%	WebFX	WebFX's own in-house data, with no sample, period or count given

How many businesses post: five counts, five definitions

Who counted	Published	Sample	Recent posting	Any posting
Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System	September 5, 2018	2,000 businesses in Google Maps results in 100 US local markets, checked by hand	About 4% posted recently and regularly	About 17% had ever posted
Ben Fisher, on Moz	February 12, 2019	2,000 profiles in the top 20 Local Finder results for 10 service searches in 10 large US cities	17.5% had posted in the previous 7 days	59.6% had ever posted
Whitespark	October 15, 2020	800,000 listings in 70 categories in 100 US and Canadian cities	4% were actively posting	28% had ever posted
SOCi, 2021 Localized Marketing Benchmark Report	May 6, 2021	Locations of 276 multi-location brands	Locations averaged one Google post a month	17% of locations were posting
Wiremo	October 14, 2026	286 profiles whose owners ran Wiremo's free audit, July 16 to October 14, 2026	181 of 286 (63%) had a live post from the previous 90 days	229 of 286 (80%) had at least one live post

These five counts are not a trend line. They used different samples and definitions, and the first three were made while update posts disappeared from view after seven days. Rozek and Fisher counted a post as recent if it was under a week old. SOCi counts the locations of multi-location brands, not independent businesses, and its blog post gives no period or definition of posting. Wiremo counts only posts still live, and its sample is owners who chose to run an audit, most of them outside the US. In all five, more than a third of the businesses or locations had no recent post when they were counted.

What the performance studies show

Three studies measured post performance or its effect, and none is both recent and broad.

Sterling Sky, analysis of 1,037 posts. Presented in April 2021 and dated February 1, 2023 on its page, it read clicks and views from Google My Business insights, which no longer exist. Offer posts averaged 3.06 clicks against 0.76 for update posts, average views ran from 277 per update post to 636 per event post, and click-through rates ran from 0.2% to 0.6%. Posts without stock photos averaged 2.13 clicks against 0.38 with them, titled posts 1.90 against 0.99, and the 50 posts with emojis 3.06 against 1.53.
Sterling Sky, ranking test. In 2021, three inactive listings in small towns got one post a week for nine weeks while 441 keywords per location were tracked, and the posts had no measurable impact on local pack rankings.
Strategy Collective, 150+ healthcare locations. The agency reports that traffic and impressions at three healthcare organizations rose while it posted, from June 2025 to January 2026, and fell when one organization paused posting in November 2025. The agency that did the posting ran the study, there was no control group, and its main test client's reported 97.3% gain in Search Console impressions is the gap between that client's paused month, November, and its July peak. In the study's own table, that client's impressions were 1,300,607 in June 2025 and 1,035,467 in January 2026.

How often to post: what the evidence supports

Google's posts help gives no posting frequency, and Google's own post tool can repeat a post weekly, monthly or on a custom schedule. What the help does document is age: posts older than six months are archived unless a date range is set, and offers and events carry their own dates. Most of the advice we read says at least weekly: 22 of the 26 articles that recommend a frequency say at least once a week, 3 set a lower minimum, and 1 says to post only when there is something useful to add. None of the 26 points to a measurement, and the 11 figures that tie a frequency to results led to no study. Sterling Sky's 2021 ranking test saw no change from weekly posts on three listings, and the one recent study that reports gains was run by the agency that did the posting, with no control group. So how often to post is a judgment, and since September 2026 you can check that judgment against the view count on each of your own posts.

What this means for an owner

Keep the facts in each post current, and give offers and events their real dates.
Check the view counts on your own posts in the dashboard after a few weeks; they are the only per-post numbers Google offers, and they count views, not clicks.
When you read a post statistic, look for its sample, its period and a link to the study, because almost half of the figures we traced named no source at all.

What Boomp's own records show

Boomp is software that publishes approved posts to the channels a customer connects, including Google Business Profile, so our records show the same gap. On July 28, 2026, we counted 195 Google Business Profile posts that Boomp published for its customers between June 1 and July 28, 2026, and none had per-post views or engagement in our records. Internal, test and agency accounts were excluded, and the count is documented on our State of Local Business Social Media report. The posting service Boomp uses stores an empty analytics record when a post publishes and never fills it, which matches what Google's API offers. The posts did reach Google; only the measurement is missing. We did not recount these posts for this rebuild, and this page adds no new number from Boomp customer data.

Method

Searches. Six searches with a web search tool (US results) at about 3 p.m. Phoenix time on November 2, 2026: "Google Business Profile posts statistics", "how often should you post on Google Business Profile", "Google Business Profile post engagement benchmark", "Google Business Profile post views average per post", "do Google Business Profile posts help rankings study" and "how long do Google Business Profile posts stay visible". We took every link returned, 95 links at 76 addresses, not a first-page cut.
Exclusions, fixed before reading. Boomp's own pages (3), pages not in English (6), and discussion threads, a podcast and a forum mirror (5), which left 62 addresses.
Reading. We saved each page and read its visible text, and opened pages that refused a plain request in a headless browser. Of the 62 addresses, 49 were unique articles, 5 duplicated another address, 3 resolved to a site's homepage, 3 could not be reached and 2 were not articles. We did not sign in, submit forms or contact anyone.
What counts. A number about posts' performance (views, clicks, engagement, traffic or rankings), how many businesses post, how often to post, or how long a post stays up. Specs such as character limits, a vendor's description of its own service, example post copy and reader comments do not count. A figure repeated in one article counts once, and each article that recommends a frequency counts once, for its main recommendation.
Tracing. A source counts only if the article names or links it next to the figure, and a reference list at the end does not count. We read each linked source we could reach, searched for each named one, and checked figures about how long posts last, and figures credited to Google, against Google's pages read the same day. SOCi's 2021 report came to us through a parallel Boomp research draft rather than the six searches, so it appears in the counts table but in no claim statistic.
Counting. Scripts wrote the dataset, stopped on any quote not found word for word in its saved page, and computed every count.

Limits

The search tool's ranking is not Google's, and six searches are not the whole web.
One reader classified each figure, and every quote is in the dataset so you can check any call.
A study we could not find may exist under another name, and one cited study, from Search Engine Land, refused every reader we tried.
The measurements we found are old (2018 to 2021) or narrow (one self-selected audit and one agency case study), and none measures post views since Google brought them back.
Post views are visible only to each profile's managers, and we did not sign in to any profile, so we have no view benchmark to offer.
We did not count posting activity ourselves for this version.

Changes from earlier versions

November 2, 2026: rebuilt around a public dataset of 98 traced figures and Google's own documentation, and retitled from "Why the Engagement Numbers Do Not Exist", because Google has shown per-post views in the dashboard since September 2026.
The post count is now 195, with its window and method; earlier versions said 302, a number with no stated scope.
The cause is now stated: Google's API has offered no per-post metrics since February 20, 2023, and the posting service Boomp uses stores an empty record, where earlier versions said the platform "returned" nothing.
Removed "Connected business profiles: 5", which had no date or method on this page.
Removed the recommendation of one to two posts a week. It was our judgment, not a measurement, and it has been cited elsewhere as benchmark guidance.
Removed the advice on what to post, what not to post and what keeps a profile looking current, because it was our opinion, not a finding; the related pages below cover what to post.
July 28, 2026: withdrew 4,573 average impressions and a 1.38% engagement rate, which no data we hold supports.

Get the data

Download the dataset as a CSV file. It has one row for each of the 98 figures, with the article's address and stated date, the exact quote, the source the article gave, the trace result and a note naming the study each figure led to. Boomp's own pages are not in the file. You may reuse this data under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC BY 4.0). Please credit boomp.net and link to this page. The citation format is at the end of the page.

Where Boomp fits

Boomp is the publisher's own product, and Boomp's own pages are not among the articles counted above. Boomp is software that reads a business's public website and writes social media posts about it.

Packs, $9 a month: ten finished posts made from your website arrive each month by email link, and you publish them yourself; nothing is connected.
Core, $39 a month: 20 posts, one carousel and one short video a month, published to your connected channels, which can include Google Business Profile, after you approve each one in the app, unless you turn on auto approval.
Service plans with Kathleen: Social, handled is $275 a month, and Kathleen reviews every post before it is scheduled. Local marketing, $900 a month, adds Google Business Profile updates, review requests, a search page each month and small website updates. Marketing partner, $1,800 a month, adds a second search page, a customer email, an offer page or promotion, and a monthly planning and progress call. Both start with a 15-minute call, and the work is agreed before payment.

No plan includes ads, replies to comments or reviews, or photo and video shoots, and no plan has a contract. Every paid plan charges from day one, and all the plans and prices are on one page. Whichever option you choose, the facts in each post, such as offer terms, dates, prices and claims your profession regulates, stay with you. To see what Boomp would write for your business first, enter your website and email for ten free finished posts with images, a carousel and a short video; the link arrives by email, with no account or card.