Google Business Profiles is placing the map pin for some service area businesses in the middle of the ocean, even though the actual service area shown on the listing is correct. The misplaced pin is appearing on listings that do not publish a street address publicly, and practitioners report seeing the issue across many profiles, not a single account.
What is happening with the map pins?
Service area businesses, or SABs, are the type of local listing that visits customers rather than welcoming them at a storefront, such as plumbers, cleaners, mobile pet groomers, and tutors. Google lets these businesses hide their address from the public and instead show a service area drawn as a polygon on the map.
The new bug keeps the service area polygon accurate but drops the marker pin itself into open water, far from where the business actually operates. That split between a correct service area and a wrong pin is the clearest sign that the issue sits in how Google plots the pin, not how the listing is configured.
How widespread is the issue?
Reports gathered from local SEO practitioners point to the same pattern on many different service area profiles, not one isolated account. The original report surfaced on LinkedIn, where the practitioner who flagged it shared side-by-side screenshots showing how the pin should sit inside the service area versus how it now sits in the ocean.
Other local search practitioners added confirmations in the comments, agreeing they had seen the same drift on multiple listings they manage. That volume suggests the bug is being triggered at the Google Business Profile or Google Maps layer rather than by something one business owner did wrong.
Why service area businesses are affected
Service area businesses are the listings most exposed to this bug because they do not show a public address on their profile. Google has to make a choice about where to anchor the pin without a real address to point to, and that anchor choice appears to have broken in a way that lands pins in water.
Listings that do publish a storefront address appear unaffected, since their pin is tied to a verified location. The bug is therefore specific to the address-hidden service area workflow that many home-based and mobile businesses rely on.
Has Google acknowledged the bug?
As of the reports, there is no public statement from Google confirming the bug or promising a fix. The issue was first flagged by a local SEO practitioner on LinkedIn rather than through an official Google channel, and the practitioners involved say it is not yet clear whether Google is aware of it.
A similar visual bug showed up years ago, when Google dropped a cluster of business pins into the geographic middle of the United States rather than at their real locations. That older case was eventually corrected, which is the most reasonable comparison for what to expect here, though no timeline has been given for the current problem.
What affected businesses should do
Until Google publishes a fix, businesses with affected listings can take a few practical steps:
- Check your own Google Business Profile on Maps and confirm whether the pin sits inside your service area or in water.
- Capture a screenshot of the misplaced pin with the timestamp visible, so you have a record of the issue.
- Report the listing through the Google Business Profile support channels so the report is logged on Google’s side.
- Avoid editing your service area or address settings in response, since the bug is upstream of those fields and changing them may not move the pin and could reset other settings.
- Watch your Search and Maps performance in Google Business Profile insights, since a pin in the wrong place can change how often your listing surfaces for nearby searches.
For businesses that want to confirm exactly where their pin is dropping across a whole service region, a geo grid report shows the real rank position in each town and suburb rather than a single city-wide average. SEOScanPro’s GEO Grids render this kind of service-area visibility map, which can help a business spot when its listing is being anchored in the wrong place.
FAQ
What is the Google Business Profiles ocean pin bug?
It is a bug affecting Google Business Profiles for service area businesses that hide their address publicly. The map pin is being placed in the middle of the ocean instead of inside the correct service area polygon.
Which listings are affected by the ocean pin bug?
Only service area businesses without a public storefront address appear affected. Businesses that show a verified address on their profile continue to have their pin anchored at the correct location.
Has Google fixed the ocean pin bug?
No fix has been announced. The issue was reported by local SEO practitioners, and it is not yet clear whether Google is aware of it or when the pin placement will return to normal.
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This article summarizes reporting from seroundtable.com.