Learn · Getting your facts right
Why does Google change my hours?
Google gathers facts about your business from more than you: suggestions from the public, licensed data and your own website. When they disagree with the hours you set, your hours can change.
48.3725° N114.1817° W
A sample · a made-up shop
Your website settles it.
Suggested edit
- Tue: closedRejected
4 days to answer
A data company
- Tue to Sat, 8 to 5
Your website
- Tue closedTue 8 to 5
- Wed to Sat 8 to 5
Your Google profilethe hours you set
MoTuWeThFrSaSu
- Wed to Sat, 8 to 5Tue to Sat, 8 to 5
A customer asks an AI assistant
“Is the shop open on Tuesday?”
It answers
Open Tuesday, 8 to 5.Closed on Tuesdays.wrongOpen Tuesday, 8 to 5.
- 1 of 4Your hours.You set Tuesday to Saturday, 8 to 5, on your Google profile.
- 2 of 4A suggested edit.Someone suggests Tuesday is closed. Google tells you, and you have 4 days to accept or reject it.
- 3 of 4Your website decides.Left unanswered, it may go live when your website supports it. Here, a typo on the site does.
- 4 of 4Fix the source.Correct the website, reject the edit, and Tuesday stays open everywhere.
The answer
Google gathers facts about your business from more than you. Its own help page names user reports and licensed content, and it can make a suggested change live when other public information, such as your website, supports it. So the hours that keep coming back are usually written somewhere else: a suggestion from the public, an old listing, or your own website. Find where they come from, fix that, and answer Google's notices when they arrive. Then show seasonal and by-appointment hours the way Google asks, so no one reads a closed season as closed for good.
Key points
- Google may notify you about a suggested edit before it goes live. You then have 4 days to accept or reject it.
- If you do not answer, Google may make the change anyway when other public information, such as your business website, supports it.
- So your own website decides more than you think. A typo there can undo the hours you set.
- Closed for the off-season? Google's own advice is to mark the business temporarily closed, not permanently.
- By appointment only? Google's guidelines say businesses that operate only by appointment shouldn't provide hours.
Where changed hours come from
Google's help page says it gathers information from different sources, like user reports and licensed content. A stranger can suggest new hours. A data company can pass along an old set. And Google reads your website.
In one case an owner shared on a public forum for local search, Google kept setting Tuesday to closed. The cause was a typo in the hours on the owner's own website. When the website was fixed, Tuesday stayed open.
How to stop a stranger's edit
- Answer every notice. Google will notify you about certain suggested edits before they go live, by email or in your Business Profile. You have 4 days to accept or reject the suggestion.
- Reject what is wrong. If you don't respond within 4 days, Google may make the update live when it is supported by other public information, such as your business website.
- Make your website agree with you. Your business website is the public information Google names. Check its hours against the hours you set, letter for letter.
- Check after any change. Look at your profile a few days after you change your hours, and again after a holiday.
Seasonal hours
Google's own guidelines cover a business that is open only part of the year:
- During the season you are open, set your regular hours. You may use your current seasonal hours as your regular hours.
- During the off-season, mark the business temporarily closed. Google's help page says to use temporarily closed if your business is closed for more than 7 days, closed for the off-season, or closed indefinitely.
- For a closure of 7 days or less, such as a holiday, use special hours instead.
- Never mark a seasonal business permanently closed. A profile marked permanently closed shows that your business is closed.
Google's page also says that, for broad searches, temporarily closed businesses can rank after open ones. That is the price of a closed season, and it ends when you reopen.
Put the season on your own website too, in words: when you open, when you close, and how to reach you in the off-season.
By appointment only
Google's guidelines say certain businesses shouldn't provide hours, including those that operate only by appointment. Say it plainly on your own website instead: that visits are by appointment, how to book one, and the hours you answer the phone.
Where it fits
Where Validated.Directory fits
Your Validated.Directory record carries the hours your own website states, read on a date and confirmed by you. When your site's hours change, the next read sees it, and we tell you if your site stops matching your record. One true version, on your own site first, is what keeps every copy from drifting.
Questions
- Why does Google keep changing my hours back?
- Usually because something public disagrees with you: a suggestion from the public, an old listing, or your own website. Find it and fix it, and answer Google's notices within 4 days.
- Someone changed my address on Google. Can I undo it?
- Look in your Business Profile for the change and reject it, then make sure your website states the right address. Google says an edit you do not answer may go live when your website supports it.
- I close for the winter. What should Google say?
- Mark the business temporarily closed for the off-season, and set your regular hours when you reopen. Do not mark it permanently closed.
- I work by appointment only. Should I list hours?
- Google's guidelines say businesses that operate only by appointment shouldn't provide hours. Say on your website how to book, and when you answer the phone.
Validated.Directory, by BeargrassAI. Columbia Falls, Montana. Written 2026-10-24.
Validated.Directory
See what AI reads about your business.
A person reads your website and sends you back your record and the nine checks, in plain words. You confirm it. AI assistants read it.
$29 a month once you have seen it. Cancel in one tap. BeargrassAI Scout, at $149 a month, includes it: every price.