Google Rewrote Its Location Asset Requirements — But Nothing Actually Changed

Google updated its Google Ads location asset requirements in September, revising terminology, improving readability, and adding troubleshooting guidance. What it did not do is change how the policy is enforced.

That combination — new wording, same rules — is worth a few minutes of your time precisely because it's the kind of update that gets misread in both directions. Some advertisers will assume a rewrite means new enforcement and go looking for problems they don't have. Others will ignore it entirely and miss that the clarified rules describe requirements they were already failing.

What the documentation now says

The requirements themselves are unchanged, but they're stated more plainly than before.

Location data comes from Google, not from you. Data for location assets is sourced directly from Google Maps and Google Business Profile. You aren't uploading addresses into Ads; you're pointing at verified entities Google already holds. Assets go through an integrity verification process before they can serve, confirming the locations represent legitimate businesses.

You pick one location asset type per account. Either direct store ownership — via Business Profile, Chain stores, or Google Maps — or affiliate locations, via Chain stores or Global Location Groups. This is an account-level choice, not a per-campaign one.

Declaring the wrong type gets your assets disapproved. Google is explicit that failure to declare location type correctly may leave your location assets in a "Disapproved" state. This is the single most common own goal in the whole area, and it's usually a misunderstanding rather than an attempt to game anything: advertisers running ads for locations they don't directly own frequently declare direct ownership because it's the more obvious-sounding option.

Closed locations stop serving. If a location is marked temporarily or permanently closed in Business Profile, its location assets won't show. That sounds obvious until you consider how often a Business Profile gets marked temporarily closed by someone in operations without anyone telling the paid media team.

Chain updates take up to a day. Changes to chain locations may take up to 24 hours to reflect in Google Ads, so an asset that looks broken immediately after a change may simply not have propagated.

Why a documentation rewrite is worth noticing

Google rewriting policy documentation without changing enforcement usually signals one of two things: either the old wording was generating a high volume of support cases and appeals, or the rules were being widely misapplied and clarity was cheaper than enforcement action.

Either way, the practical read is the same. If your understanding of these rules came from the previous wording, there's a reasonable chance your understanding was one of the ones Google felt needed correcting. The addition of troubleshooting guidance specifically points at advertisers hitting problems they couldn't self-diagnose.

What to check

Confirm your account-level location asset type is correct. Particularly if you run ads for franchise locations, resellers, stockists, or any arrangement where the business you advertise isn't the business you own. Affiliate is the right declaration more often than advertisers assume.

Audit for disapproved location assets. If you've had assets sitting disapproved without a clear cause, an incorrect type declaration is the first thing to rule out now the rules are stated plainly.

Cross-check Business Profile status against your active location campaigns. Any location marked closed is silently not serving. This is a five-minute check that occasionally explains weeks of unexplained local performance decline.

Don't panic-audit everything else. Enforcement hasn't changed. If your location assets have been serving normally, this rewrite doesn't put them at new risk.

Sources

• Google Ads Help: About location assets