The Google Business Profile Myth Keeping Accountants and Solicitors Out of AI Search Answers
A polished Google Business Profile reassures a client scrolling through search results by hand. ChatGPT and Perplexity see almost none of it, and here is what they check on your site instead.
Someone dealing with a contested will asks ChatGPT to recommend a solicitor who handles probate disputes instead of scrolling through search results by hand. The assistant names two firms. Neither has the highest star rating on Google. Both have one thing in common that has nothing to do with their Google Business Profile.
A Five Star Profile Does Not Travel Past Google
Accountants and solicitors spend real effort polishing their Google Business Profile: practice area categories, office photos, a steady stream of reviews, a filled out questions and answers section. That effort pays off inside Google Maps and the local pack. It mostly does not reach ChatGPT or Perplexity, because those assistants do not have a live connection into your Google Business Profile the way Google's own products do. They build their answers from what they can crawl on the open web, which means your own website, not your profile dashboard.
1. What Each Assistant Actually Reads
Google's AI Overview pulls in some Business Profile signals, such as your category and a handful of review snippets, because it sits inside Google's own systems. ChatGPT and Perplexity work differently. They read your website, plus whatever shows up about you in directories, legal and accounting listing sites, and other pages a web crawl can reach. A fact that lives only inside your Google dashboard is invisible to both of them.
2. The Fields That Never Leave Your Profile
A handful of details get set once inside the Google Business Profile dashboard and then sit there for good, seen only by Google.
- Practice area checkboxes ticked inside the profile, never repeated as a sentence on your site
- Custom attributes such as free initial consultation, set in the backend only
- The questions and answers section under your listing, which almost no one reads
- Photos of your office uploaded only to the profile gallery, never used on your own pages
3. Move The Same Facts Onto Your Own Pages
None of this means abandoning your Google Business Profile. It means treating it as one place to state a fact, not the only place. A practice area, a consultation offer, an accreditation number, or a response time should appear in plain text on your homepage or services pages as well as inside your profile. Said once in the dashboard, a fact reaches Google. Said again on your own site, it reaches every assistant that crawls the web.
| Where the fact currently lives | Who can actually read it |
|---|---|
| Practice area set inside your Google Business Profile | Google Maps and the local pack only |
| Practice area written in plain text on your services page | Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and any other assistant that crawls the web |
| Free initial consultation ticked as a profile attribute | Visible only inside the profile card |
| Free initial consultation stated in a page heading or FAQ answer | Every assistant reading your site |
4. Reviews Still Matter, Just Not Where You Left Them
A five star average sitting inside your Google profile is a signal Google's own local systems weigh heavily and most other assistants cannot see at all. Quoting an actual review on your website, naming the specific matter it praises, gives every assistant the same trust signal in a form it can actually read.
A review that only lives inside your Google profile is invisible to every assistant except Google's own.
The Takeaway
A Google Business Profile is table stakes for showing up in the local map pack. It was never built to feed ChatGPT, Perplexity, or the growing list of assistants people now consult before they call an accountant or a solicitor. Copy the handful of facts that matter, practice area, consultation offer, accreditation number, and a specific review, onto your own website, and you stop depending on Google to carry your reputation to every assistant on your behalf.