Service area businesses using Google Business Profiles can now see exactly where their service area is displayed on Google Maps, and many are finding their map pin parked somewhere offshore instead of on land. A newly reported bug in Google Business Profiles is placing the red map marker for some service area businesses in the middle of the ocean, even though the shaded service area itself renders in the correct location.
The glitch affects businesses that do not publish a street address on their public listing, a setting chosen by plumbers, cleaners, landscapers, mobile mechanics and other businesses that travel to customers rather than welcoming them on site. When the map pin drops in open water, customers searching for the business can still see the service area shape on the map, but the named marker is floating far from any usable address, which makes directions, distance checks and trust signals harder to interpret.
What the bug looks like
The reported behavior is consistent across multiple profiles. Google Maps continues to draw the correct service area polygon, the shaded region that shows the towns and zip codes the business covers. At the same time, the red pin that labels the business by name appears well outside that polygon, sitting in ocean coordinates rather than anywhere near the business’s real operating area.
Screenshots shared in a LinkedIn post by a local search practitioner showed the difference side by side: the correct view, where the pin sits inside or on the edge of the service area, and the broken view, where the pin is offshore and disconnected from the shaded coverage zone. The practitioner noted that the issue is not isolated to a single listing and that other local SEO professionals had observed the same behavior on multiple profiles.
Which businesses are affected
The bug is specific to service area businesses, the category of Google Business Profile where the owner chooses not to display a public storefront address. These profiles rely on the map pin and the service area shape to communicate location to customers. When the pin lands in the ocean, the profile still loads, the business hours still display and reviews still appear, but the geographic anchor is wrong.
Businesses with a visible storefront address, those that share a public location, do not appear to be affected, because Google already has a verified address to plot on the map.
Has Google responded?
As of the report, there has been no public acknowledgment or fix announcement from Google about the misplaced pins. Practitioners who spotted the issue flagged it on social media and in community forums, but Google has not confirmed whether the engineering team is aware or when a fix might roll out.
This is not the first time Google Maps has placed business pins in unusual locations. A previous, separate issue years ago caused some business markers to drop in the middle of the continental United States, far from any actual city, suggesting that pin placement errors in Google Business Profiles have surfaced before in different forms.
What affected businesses can do in the meantime
- Check the Google Business Profile on a desktop browser and on the Google Maps mobile app to confirm whether the pin is misplaced on both surfaces.
- Take a screenshot of the broken pin location along with the correctly drawn service area, since clear evidence speeds up support replies.
- Use the Google Business Profile support channels to report the pin as a map data issue, including the business name, the correct service area and a note that no public address is set.
- Avoid editing the service area or toggling the address visibility settings while the bug is being investigated, because changes to those fields can reset the profile and slow down a fix.
- Watch the profile for a few days, since temporary glitches in Google Maps often resolve without a formal fix announcement.
Why service area businesses should care
The map pin is one of the strongest trust signals a local business has on Google. A pin in the wrong place raises immediate questions for a customer trying to decide whether to call: how far away is this company, do they actually serve my zip code, and is the listing accurate. For a business that has chosen not to publish an address for privacy or operational reasons, an offshore pin removes the visual reassurance that the business is anchored to the area it serves.
For local SEO work, the pin also affects how third-party tools and dashboards interpret the listing. A geo grid report, which plots a business’s rank position across a service area town by town, depends on a stable map location to compare visibility across neighborhoods. Tools that read the map pin to anchor those reports can return misleading distances when the pin itself is in the wrong place. Rank position across a service area is what a geo grid report shows, and SEOScanPro’s GEO Grids do this for businesses that want to see exactly where they are visible and where they are not.
FAQ
What is the Google Maps ocean pin bug?
It is a reported bug in Google Business Profiles where the red map pin for some service area businesses appears in the middle of the ocean, while the shaded service area itself renders in the correct location on land.
Which Google Business Profiles are affected by the ocean pin bug?
The bug affects service area businesses that do not display a public street address on their listing. Profiles with a visible storefront address do not appear to be impacted.
Has Google fixed the ocean pin bug?
No public fix has been announced. Google has not confirmed awareness of the issue, and no timeline for a resolution has been provided.
Related coverage
- Why Your Google Reviews Keep Disappearing (And What Your Business Score Depends On) – BizScoreAI
- Warning: Google Business Profile Hijacking Scams Are on the Rise – BizScoreAI
- How Google Posts Boost Your Business Listing Score – BizScoreAI
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This article summarizes reporting from seroundtable.com. See our editorial disclaimer for how our articles are produced.
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