Quick Answer
Google turned off the free websites built inside Business Profiles in March 2024. Your Business Profile still exists. Only the website feature went away, and the old business.site address no longer works.
To replace it:
- Pick a replacement that fits what you need: a one-page site, or a full site with a page per service and per town.
- Register a domain you own, so a platform can never take your address away again.
- Build the new site and publish it on that domain.
- Update the website link on your profile.
- Replace the old link everywhere it was printed or saved.
For a local service business, the best replacement is a full multi-page site built from the profile itself. 1ClickWebsite does that in about three minutes. If you only need a simple page, Google Sites, Carrd, Wix, and Squarespace all work.
What Happened and When
Google's own help article, which now redirects to a general profile-editing page, set out the change. The dates below come from Search Engine Journal's report quoting that article, and from Croisa's summary of the archived copy.
- March 5, 2024: websites made with Google Business Profiles were turned off. Visitors were redirected to the business's profile instead.
- June 10, 2024: the redirect ended. Since then, old addresses show a "Page not found" error.
- business.site and negocio.site addresses were removed from the website field on profiles.
Google said Business Profiles were otherwise not affected, and that businesses without one of these websites were not affected at all. Search Engine Journal's report from the time quotes Google's announcement. The list of builders Google suggested instead was Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy, Google Sites, Shopify, Durable, Weebly, Strikingly, and WordPress, per Croisa's write-up of the archived help article.
There was no automatic migration. Your old site's content did not move anywhere, so you rebuild it.
What Happens to Your Old business.site Address
Three things to know:
- The address is dead. Anyone who opens a yourname.business.site link now sees an error page. Ciclicko says the old site cannot be recovered, so you replace the link rather than fix it.
- The website field on your profile. Google removed business.site addresses from the field, so it may be empty, or you may have added something since. If it still shows a broken link, replace it. Ciclicko's advice is blunt: a broken link is worse than no link, so leave the field empty until the new site is live.
- Things that pointed at the old site. A custom domain you forwarded to the Google site, Google Ads that sent people to it, and anything printed with the address. Per Croisa's summary of Google's article, domains forwarded to the old site stopped working after June 10, 2024, and ads linked to it could be disapproved. Fix those too.
What to Do This Week
This takes an afternoon. Most of it is the site itself.
1. Check your profile first
Make sure the name, address, phone number, hours, services, and service areas on your Business Profile are right. Your new site will copy them, so it is the cheapest place to fix mistakes.
2. Pick a replacement
See the next section. The short version: one page if you only need to exist, a full site if you want to be found for each service and each town.
3. Get a domain
Register your own domain (yourbusiness.com or similar). The old address belonged to Google, so it could not leave with you. A domain you own can point at any site, now or later.
4. Rebuild the site
Include your services, service areas, photos, hours, a map, real reviews, and a call button and contact form that work on a phone. Use the same business name, address, and phone number as the profile, written the same way.
5. Update the website link on your profile
Search for your business on Google, open your profile controls, and go to Edit profile → Contact → Website. Enter the new address and save. Google's help page on editing your Business Profile covers the contact details. Then open the link on your phone and confirm it loads.
6. Check old links, QR codes, and printed cards
Search your own materials for "business.site." Common places:
- Business cards, flyers, menus, and vehicle signs
- QR codes that point at the old address (the code needs regenerating, since it encodes the old link)
- Email signatures
- Facebook, Instagram, and other social profiles
- Directory listings such as Yelp, Apple Maps, and Bing Places
- A domain forwarded to the old site, in your domain provider's settings
- Google Ads that used the old address as the landing page
What to Use Instead
| Option | Best for | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| 1ClickWebsite | Local service businesses and agencies that want a full site that can rank | A WordPress site built once from the profile; you update it when details change |
| Google Sites | A free, basic page | Google listed it as an option; limited for service and area pages |
| Carrd | A one-page site | One page only |
| Wix or Squarespace | Owners who want to build and manage the site themselves | You write and structure every page yourself |
| WordPress (self-built) | Long-term control and many service pages | Most setup and maintenance |
| Hiring a designer | Custom design and strategy | Slowest and costs the most |
1ClickWebsite
Enter the business name, pick a template, confirm the details it finds on the profile (address, hours, services, service areas, reviews), and click Create Site. About three minutes later you have a homepage, a page for every service, a page for every service area, the business's real Google reviews, and a contact page with lead forms. It is a WordPress site, so you can edit it in the visual editor or describe changes to the built-in Website Agent. Step by step: How to Turn Any Google Business Profile Into a Website in About 3 Minutes.
The general builders
Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, Shopify, GoDaddy, Google Sites, WordPress, and Durable are all on the list Google pointed owners to. They are blank-page tools: you start from nothing and write each page. Dorik's list of Business Profile website alternatives walks through several of them in detail. For a side-by-side of tools that read the profile, see Best GBP Website Builders in 2026.
Prices change often, so check each tool's own plan page before you pay.
Use the Rebuild to Get a Better Site Than the One You Lost
The old Google site was one page with your basics on it. Dorik's page describes it as having no custom domain, no blog, no forms, and no real SEO. Replacing it with another one-page copy puts you back where you were.
Since you have to rebuild anyway, use the chance to do more:
- A page for each service. Ciclicko's guidance for local sites is a page for each main service, with what it is, who it is for, and frequently asked questions. A one-line label on a profile does not do that.
- A page for each area you serve. A page like "Pipe Repair in La Jolla" can show up for that exact search. A single page cannot.
- Real forms and a phone button. The old site had a contact button at best.
- A domain that is yours. This ends the problem of an address you do not control.
A website is not required to appear on Maps, but Ciclicko notes it helps with relevance, prominence, and conversion. No tool can promise rankings. What a multi-page site does is give you more to rank with than the page you lost.
Pro tip: build demo replacements for a whole lead list
If you build sites for local businesses, this shutdown left a lot of them with a dead link and no website. You can use that.
Mini Sites in the 1ClickWebsite dashboard builds a one-page demo site for every business on a list, so you can send each owner a replacement for the site Google took away.
- Up to 500 businesses per batch.
- Upload a CSV of businesses from your lead source.
business_nameis required. Optional columns arephone,email,address,logo_urlandprimary_color. - One industry per batch.
- It costs one Mini Site credit per business, plus 5 once for an industry without saved photos.
Send each owner the link to their demo, then build the full site for the ones who reply. It also runs from Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor through the MCP server. See the Mini Sites batch guide and the API docs. For the full agency workflow, read the agency section of our GBP guide.
Related GBP Guides
FAQ
Did Google delete my Business Profile?
No. Google said Business Profiles were not affected. Only the website made with the profile was turned off. Your profile still appears in Search and Maps, and you can keep editing it.
Can I get my old business.site address back?
No. The address belonged to Google's retired builder, and it cannot be reclaimed or redirected. Build a new site on a domain you own, then update the website link on your profile.
What should I put in the website field now?
Your own site, ideally linked to the page that fits your business best. If you do not have one yet, leave the field empty rather than leave a broken link. Ciclicko advises against using a social media profile as a stand-in.
Is Google Sites the same thing?
No. Google Sites is a separate product. Google listed it among the builders to use instead. It can work for a simple page, but it will not give you a page per service and per town without a lot of manual work.
Do I need to redo my Google Ads?
If you ran ads to the old site, yes. Per Croisa's summary of Google's article, ads linked to a Business Profile website could be disapproved after March 5, 2024. Point them at a real landing page on your new site.
My domain used to forward to the old site. What now?
Sign in to your domain provider and point it at the new site. According to Croisa's summary, forwarding to the old site stopped working after June 10, 2024.
Can I do all this if I do not own the profile?
You can build a site for any business you have permission to represent. To change the website field on the profile itself, you need to manage the profile.
Sources and Review Notes
This post was informed by an LLM Sleuth research run on 2026-11-08 across GPT-6.1 Sol, Claude Sonnet 5.5, Gemini 3.8 Flash, and Perplexity Sonar. Dates and shutdown details come from the pages below. Google's original help article on the shutdown now redirects to a general profile-editing page, so those details are taken from Search Engine Journal's report quoting it and from Croisa's summary of an archived copy. Product facts for 1ClickWebsite come from our existing tutorial and docs. Prices are left out on purpose because they change, so check each tool directly.
- Google Business Profile Help: Edit your Business Profile
- Search Engine Journal: Websites created with Google Business Profiles to shut down in March
- Croisa: What happened to Google Business Profile websites
- Cheers: What happened to Google's business.site websites
- Ciclicko: The Google Business Profile website is gone
- Dorik: 8 Google Business Profile website alternatives
- WebDesk Solution: Google Business Profile websites to shut down
- 1ClickWebsite: How to turn any Google Business Profile into a website