What Happened to Google's Free Business Websites?
On this page
- What Google actually switched off
- How to tell whether this was you
- What a dead link on your listing costs
- Your Facebook page is not the replacement
- What people actually replace it with
- What belongs on the other end of that link
- The one thing the Google page got right
- What to do this week
- The fastest way to see what yours would look like
Short answer: Google turned them off in March 2024, and they are not coming back.
If your Google listing still points at one, it is doing its job perfectly and then handing every interested customer a dead end.
Here is what happened and what to do about it.
What Google actually switched off
These were the websites Google generated automatically out of a Business Profile. You never designed one. You filled in your listing, and Google built a single page from your name, hours, photos, services and reviews. Most of them lived at an address ending in business.site.
Google began switching them off in March 2024. For a few months after that, anyone who clicked one was redirected to your Google listing instead. That redirect ended on June 10, 2024.
Since then, the link goes nowhere.
How to tell whether this was you
Two minutes, on your phone, the way a customer would do it:
- Search your own business name in Google.
- Tap the Website button on your listing.
- Look at where you land.
If you get a real site with your services on it, you are fine. If you get an error page, a blank page, or you get bounced straight back to the listing you started from, that was a Google-built site.
If the address you have saved ends in business.site, you do not need to check. That was one of them.
What a dead link on your listing costs
The person who taps your website button is not browsing. They are comparing.
They have already found you on Maps, read your rating, and decided you are worth a closer look. That is the furthest down the road a stranger gets before they call. Then the page fails to load.
They do not email you about it. They tap the back arrow and open the next business on the list.
The second cost is quieter. Google and chat bots like ChatGPT read the website behind that link when they decide what to say about a business. A dead link gives them nothing of yours to read, so they work from the listing alone, which is a few lines. We wrote up how ChatGPT picks the local businesses it recommends if you want that part in detail.
Your Facebook page is not the replacement
The quickest fix owners reach for is pasting a social profile into the website field. It is better than a broken link, and it is still not a website.
A social page is rented ground. Someone else sets the layout, decides what shows first, and puts other people's ads next to your work. You cannot give a service its own page, and you cannot put your prices somewhere a search engine will read them as yours.
Use it. Do not file it under solved.
What people actually replace it with
Three routes, and the price tags are not close to each other.
- A site builder. Wix runs $17 to $46 a month, and every hour of layout, writing and updating is yours.
- An agency build. $2,000 to $10,000 up front, before hosting. Built once, then usually left alone, because changes come with a quote.
- Done for you. Someone builds it and keeps it current, for a monthly price.
We put real numbers, including the costs that never make the price tag, in what a small business website actually costs.
What belongs on the other end of that link
Whatever you choose, the replacement has to do more than the Google page did. That page was one screen. Aim for these:
- A page for every service you sell, with the real price on it, so a search for that exact service finds a page about that exact service.
- Pages for the neighborhoods you serve, because people search where they live.
- Your Google reviews as real text on the page, quoted word for word, not a screenshot.
- One tap to call or book, sitting where a thumb already is.
Here is a real one. Trusted Lock is a locksmith in New Orleans.
The one thing the Google page got right
Worth saying, because it is the part most replacements lose.
The free Google website never disagreed with your listing. It could not. It was generated from the listing, so when you changed your hours, the page changed with them.
Hand-built sites break that link on day one. Your hours move for a holiday, you update Google, and the website quietly keeps promising something different. Now two versions of your business exist, one of them is wrong, and whoever trusted the wrong one is standing at a locked door.
The setup worth having keeps the listing as the single source of truth and lets the website follow it. That is how we build it: you change your hours and services on Google the way you already do, and the site updates the same day.
What to do this week
- Tap your own website button. Ten seconds. Do it before you read anything else about this.
- If it is dead, do not leave it sitting there. A broken link is worse than an empty field.
- Register a domain in your own name. Any registrar, usually $10 to $20 a year. Your business name, not a builder's subdomain.
- Put a real site behind it. Home, a page per service with prices, contact with map and hours.
- Keep it matched to your listing. One set of facts, everywhere.
Steps 1 to 3 you can do today. Step 4 is the one that stalls, which is why most listings that lost a Google site in 2024 still point at nothing.
The fastest way to see what yours would look like
Type your business name at 30secondsites.com and you will see a website built from your Google listing in about 30 seconds. Your photos, your reviews, your services, your hours.
Looking is free. No card, no login, no email until you want to keep it.
Questions
Asked about this, answered plainly
My listing still shows a website button. Does that mean my site still works?
Not necessarily. The button shows whatever address is saved on your listing, working or not. Google does not remove a link because it broke. Tap it yourself on your phone and see where you land.
Can I get the old Google-built website back?
No. Google retired the feature, not just the individual pages, so there is nothing to switch back on. Anything you wrote on it came from your Business Profile in the first place, so the facts are not lost.
Should I just delete the website link from my listing?
Deleting a dead link is better than leaving it, because a broken page reads worse than no page. But an empty website field also costs you every customer who wanted to check you out before calling. Treat deletion as a stopgap, not the fix.
Do I lose my old business.site address?
It stopped resolving after the shutdown, so there is nothing left to lose. Whatever you build next should live on a domain registered in your own name, which usually costs $10 to $20 a year at any registrar.
How much does replacing it cost?
An agency build runs $2,000 to $10,000 before hosting. A builder like Wix is $17 to $46 a month and you do the work. 30 Second Sites is $49.99 a month per business with hosting and your domain connected, and nothing is charged until you have seen the finished site.