How to add a business to Google Maps and Yandex Maps: setup, verification and reviews

A map card is a free listing inside Google and Yandex

The question of how to add a business to Google Maps usually comes up the day a customer says they could not find you. Google Business Profile Help says you can add or claim your business at no charge, and Google says local results appear on Google Maps and in Search. In Russia the same role belongs to Yandex Business, whose help says placement is free as well. A card is not a website. It is an address, hours, a phone, photos and reviews, kept by the platform and edited by you.

Yandex Business Help lists where its card is shown: Yandex Search, Yandex Maps on the web and in the app, Yandex Navigator and Yandex Go. 2GIS, a separate map and directory, publishes company reference data free of charge, according to its own help.

Account first, then a search for a card that already exists

Customers sometimes add a business before its owner does, so search the map first. Google Business Profile Help gives two routes. A new business is added at business.google.com/add. An unverified listing is claimed in Google Maps: open it, choose “Claim this business”, then “Manage now”. If someone has already verified it, Google sends you to request ownership from the current owner.

Yandex Business Help describes the same fork. If the company is not on Yandex Maps yet, you open the Organisations page, type the name and pick the main type of activity from the list; two more can be added later. If it is already there, you confirm your rights instead. Do not use a personal login, such as the one for Mail or Disk, because a company cannot be moved to another login.

2GIS works differently. Its help offers company representatives a special form, and within three working days 2GIS specialists call to check the details before placing the company in the directory. For later edits 2GIS offers a free company account for managing the information, statistics and advertising.

Business name, category and address under each platform’s rules

Google’s guidelines ask for the name customers know from the real world, with no taglines, store codes, hours or phone numbers added. Categories should be as few and as specific as possible, and Google offers a test: the category completes the sentence “this business is a …”. A bakery that also sells coffee is a bakery; the coffee goes into the description.

Yandex Business Help sets similar limits. A card carries one main type of activity and up to two secondary ones, and extra services are not types of activity: a hotel with a pool stays a hotel and marks the pool under features. The naming rules drop the legal form, such as LLC, and a business with its own name should not prefix it with its trade.

Google does not accept P.O. boxes or remote mailboxes, tells service-area businesses without a storefront to hide their address, and wants one profile per business. Yandex publishes one address per card and refuses legal or postal addresses that differ from the real location, as well as residential flats, with narrow exceptions such as nail studios. A business that customers cannot visit becomes an online company, shown only by direct link and not on Yandex Maps.

Verification: how Google and Yandex confirm the business is real

Google Business Profile Help lists phone or text, email, a video recording, a live video call and a postcard. The methods are automatically determined by Google and can’t be changed, depending on the business type, public information, region and hours. Some businesses need more than one, and reviews take up to five business days.

Each method has a trap. A phone code must reach a line where a person answers, because voice-menu systems will not get it. A live video call is only available within your business hours. Most postcard codes arrive within 14 days and expire after 30, and while you wait Google asks you not to edit the name, address or category, nor to request a new code.

Yandex checks in two steps. First you confirm your rights with a code sent by text or an automated call to the phone on the card; its help advises a direct number without a voice menu. Then a new offline company may be asked for a video of the house number plate, the sign, the entrance and the room for customers, filmed in one take with no cuts or effects. You get 14 calendar days to send it, the check takes up to three calendar days, and after a refusal on recheck Yandex may ignore new applications for half a year.

Filling the card: opening hours, contacts, photos and a price list

Google says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local results, and asks for regular customer-facing hours plus special hours for holidays. Yandex Business has the same pair: a weekly schedule with breaks and a separate block for holidays that leaves the usual schedule untouched.

Yandex Business Help says pictures appear in the Maps card and on the search page, and companies with a filled profile and varied pictures are added to its search results first. Its limits are JPG or PNG up to 10 MB, up to 500 photos and videos up to one minute. Approved photos go live within an hour; dark, blurry or duplicate shots are rejected.

People search maps for products and services too, so prices matter. Yandex takes a price list typed by hand or uploaded as XLS, XLSX or YML, and a list without prices does not reach Maps. The badge “Information confirmed by the owner” needs confirmed rights, filled hours, website, phone, photos and at least one priced item, with data refreshed at least every three months; Yandex suggests at least three photos.

Reviews on the map: what the rules ban and how to ask honestly

Yandex Business Help says it does not publish reviews obtained dishonestly and treats a review as boosted when its author never dealt with the company. It names three things to avoid: paying for reviews or asking friends who never visited, telling customers what to praise, and pressure such as asking to see the review or offering discounts for positive comments. On Google, free or discounted goods in exchange for reviews are strictly prohibited.

Asking honestly is encouraged. Google suggests sending customers a link or a QR code. Yandex Business offers printable cards and QR codes in its promo materials and advises a polite reminder one to three days after the visit. You may suggest a direction, such as the menu, but never the verdict.

In Yandex you reply only from the Yandex Business account, once per review, in Russian and within 2,500 characters, and moderation takes about three days on average; if the author edits the review, the reply disappears. Google asks for short, honest replies without promotions, never revealing the reviewer’s private details, and suggests moving a complicated dispute to phone or email.

Checking that the listing works once it is live

Start by searching for your own name. Yandex Business Help says a profile that passes the check is published and added to Yandex Maps automatically, and the company can be found by name in Search the next day; a status unchanged for two weeks is a reason to write to support. On Google, a confirmation email arrives once the business is verified.

Then read the statistics. Yandex Business counts visits to the profile, routes built, taps on the call button and clicks to the website, and lists the last 50 processed visits with the queries behind them, with a delay of one to two days. Growing routes and calls mean the card is chosen; views without them mean it is seen and passed over.

Ranking is a separate subject. Google says local results depend mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, that more reviews and positive ratings can help, and that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Turning a correct card into a flow of customers is the topic of the studio guide on Google Maps and Yandex Maps linked below.

What to prepare before ordering a map listing setup

Most of the job is gathering, not clicking. Collect the name exactly as on the sign, the precise address with a landmark note such as “entrance from the courtyard”, a phone answered by a person, a website or social page, hours with holidays, at least three good photos and a price list with real prices. Create a work login for the company. If Yandex may ask for a video, check that the house number and the sign are visible.

One location with a clear address is something most owners can set up themselves. Outside help makes sense with several branches, a disputed category, a rejected video, or a card that must work with a website, analytics and advertising. Keep the ownership: Yandex says agencies cannot take the owner role and are added by the owner as representatives. VITON13 Studio takes on this setup within its marketing services, and the linked pages carry the scope and prices. Whoever does it, a listing on Google Maps and Yandex Maps comes down to one habit: true data, kept current.