How to add your homestay to Google Maps — a step-by-step Google Business Profile guide

TL;DR

• • Check you qualify: Google wants in-person contact with guests; you or your staff should be there.
• • Create and verify at business.google.com; Google picks the verification method.
• • Category: one primary (often bed and breakfast) plus up to nine secondary.
• • Photos, check-in times, amenities through Edit profile and Hotel details.
• • Website field = your booking page. Add WhatsApp as the chat option.
• • Google’s hotel price list needs a connectivity partner since 30 July 2025; SitesPlaced is not one.
• • Reviews: ask at check-out, use Google’s review QR code, reply to every one.

Step 1: Check that your homestay qualifies

Google’s eligibility rules say a business must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours, and they list rental properties such as vacation homes as examples that cannot have a profile. A homestay where you, your family or a caretaker welcome guests fits. A self-check-in flat where nobody is ever on site may be refused. Before you start, also search Google Maps for your stay’s name: a past guest may already have added a pin. If so, claim it instead of making a second one: Google’s hotel guide says to go to business.google.com/add, find your stay and select Request access.

Step 2: Create the profile

Go to business.google.com and sign in with a Google account you will keep (not a staff member’s). Enter your stay’s name exactly as it appears on your signboard. Do not add words like “best homestay Manali” to the name; Google treats that as against its rules, and it can get the profile suspended. Drop the map pin on your actual gate, not the main road, because guests will drive to wherever you put it. Add your phone number, ideally the one you answer on WhatsApp.

Give access to a second person in the family through Business Profile settings, then People and access. Google’s hotel guide warns that profiles get stuck when the only owner leaves; two owners or managers is a simple safety net.

Step 3: Verify it

Nothing you add shows reliably until the profile is verified. Google picks the verification method for you based on your category, and you cannot change it. It may be a code by phone or email, or a short video of the place. Google’s 2026 hotel guide says the review can take up to five business days, and if a video is rejected you are told why. If you are asked for a video, shoot it in daylight in one take: the signboard, the gate and the street outside, then something only the person running the place has, such as the keys to the rooms.

Step 4: Choose the right category

The category tells Google what you are. You get one primary category and up to nine secondary ones, ten in all. Start typing and pick the closest match Google offers. “Homestay” is not one of Google’s lodging categories; the closest is usually bed and breakfast, which Google says is also known as a guest house, and which it describes as a small property with the owner or a manager present and home-cooked meals or a shared kitchen. A stay on a working farm, orchard or tea garden fits farm stay.

Google also decides, partly from how you run the place, whether you count as a hotel-type property (front desk or someone on site, public address) or a vacation rental. If you think you have been put in the wrong one, Google says to contact its Hotel Center support.

Step 5: Photos, check-in times and amenities

Photos decide whether someone clicks through. Shoot on your phone in daylight, tidy each space first, and upload through Photos, then Add photos. Avoid filters that change the colour of the sky or the walls; guests compare.

For a lodging profile, Google’s hotel guide says you edit amenities and check-in and check-out times through Edit profile, then Hotel details, which opens a separate tool: search for the attribute (free Wi-Fi, parking, pet friendly, breakfast) and fill it in. Write a plain description too: what kind of place it is, how many rooms, what is nearby, what food you serve.

Step 6: Add your booking link, WhatsApp and Instagram

Every profile has a Website field under Edit profile, then Contact. Put the page where guests can see your rooms and prices and book, not your Instagram page and not a travel app listing. If Google shows a separate booking link option for your category, add the same link there as well; it may not appear for lodging categories, and the Website field does the job. Both are free.

In the same Contact section, the Chat option lets you choose WhatsApp and paste your click-to-chat link, so guests can message you straight from Maps. Add your Instagram and Facebook pages under Social profiles.

About Google’s hotel price list. When you search for hotels, Google often shows a list of prices with “free booking links”. Since 30 July 2025, Google has said hotels can no longer type their own rates into their profile for this; they need a connectivity partner, which is a booking or channel software company connected to Google. SitesPlaced is not one, so we cannot put your rates in that list. What your SitesPlaced site does is publish your rooms and prices in a format Google can read, with a sitemap listing every room page, so the website you link from your profile is easy for Google to understand.

Step 7: Get reviews, and reply to all of them

Reviews are what a stranger reads before booking. Ask in person at check-out, when the guest is happy and the stay is fresh: “If you enjoyed it, a Google review helps us a lot.” Google lets you create a review QR code from inside your profile; print it for the dining table or reception, and send the link on WhatsApp the same evening.

Reply to every review, using the guest’s name and something specific about their stay. Answer a bad review calmly with what you fixed. Never pay for reviews or offer a discount or free night in return; Google’s review rules do not allow it, and reviews can be removed. After that, post an update now and then (season opening, a festival menu, the first snow) through Add post, so the profile looks alive.

What to link it to

A Google profile that sends people to an Instagram page makes them DM you for prices. One that sends them to a booking page lets them book. A free SitesPlaced homestay website gives you that page: rooms with photos, a calendar with each night’s price, the total with GST before the button, check-in times, house rules, nearby places and a Google Maps button, at 0% commission. The full list of what the page needs is in what every homestay website needs, and the wider plan is in how to get direct bookings.

Frequently asked questions