Why is my restaurant not showing on Google Maps?

The usual causes, in order of likelihood

Start with an unverified listing. Someone set the profile up, never finished the postcard or video verification, and it simply sits there invisible. Sign in and check the status. By a wide distance, this is the most common cause of all.

Suspension comes next. It gets triggered by a keyword-stuffed name like ‘Best Biryani Restaurant Chandni Chowk’, an address that does not match your signage, a virtual office, or a burst of edits made in quick succession. Suspended profiles just vanish. They disappear from Maps entirely, usually with almost no explanation attached.

Then the wrong primary category. Set yourself as Food Delivery instead of Indian Restaurant and you will not surface for restaurant searches nearby. Category is decisive. It drives which queries you are even eligible for more than almost anything else on the profile.

Duplicates cause trouble too. Two profiles for the same restaurant split your reviews and leave Google unsure which one is real. It happens after a rebrand. It also happens when a delivery aggregator quietly created a listing on your behalf.

And sometimes you are visible, just not where you happened to look. Maps ranks on proximity. Searching from home, three kilometres away, shows a completely different set of results than a customer standing on the pavement outside your door.

How to fix it

Verify first. Video verification is the usual route now, and it needs an unbroken recording that shows the street, your signage, the interior, and something that proves you run the place, like opening a till or a stock cupboard. Plan the walk first. Rehearse it before you hit record.

If you are suspended, fix the underlying issue before you appeal. Fix the cause, then appeal. Change the business name to exactly what is on your board, strip out any keywords, confirm the address matches your signage precisely, then submit the reinstatement request with photographs of the storefront and a utility bill or registration document that backs up the address.

Set the primary category to your actual cuisine, and add secondary categories sparingly. Fill in the hours, holiday hours included. Add the menu. Upload at least twenty photographs of the food and the room, real ones, not stock imagery pulled off the internet.

For duplicates, claim both. Then request a merge rather than deleting one, so the reviews consolidate onto a single profile instead of quietly disappearing.

How to check it worked

Search your restaurant name plus the locality from a phone that is physically near the restaurant, with location services on, in an incognito window. Then open the Google Business Profile performance report and watch searches and Maps views across the next fortnight. Be patient here. A reinstatement can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, and the profile usually just reappears with no notification at all, so keep checking rather than waiting for an email that never comes.