Google Business Profile in Arabic
One profile for a bilingual business: the name rule that catches everyone, categories, descriptions, reviews in two languages, and what not to duplicate.
Run one profile, not two. Google's guidelines allow a single profile per business and specifically prohibit repeating the name in two scripts, so the bilingual work happens in the description, posts, replies and your own site — not by creating an Arabic duplicate of an English listing.
This is the profile-level detail behind local SEO in Saudi Arabia, which covers the wider discipline.
On this page
What is the name rule, and why does it catch everyone?
Google's guidelines prohibit repeating the same business name in multiple scripts or languages in the name field — and they say so explicitly even where the physical signage shows both [1]. Bilingual signage is normal across the Gulf, so this rule surprises almost every business here, and it is one of the most common reasons a profile gets edited or suspended.
95.76%
What to do instead is simpler than it sounds: use the name the business is genuinely known by, in one form. If the business is known in Arabic, use the Arabic name. If it trades under an English name, use that. Do not put both in the field, do not append a transliteration, and do not add a service or a city to it.
That last point is worth stating separately because the temptation is strong. Adding a keyword or a district to the name field looks like free relevance and is a guideline breach that competitors can and do report.
How do you serve both languages from one profile?
Through the fields that are meant to carry language, and through the surfaces around the profile rather than inside it.
Choose the description's language deliberately
It is one field, so it is a decision. Write it in whichever language the majority of your customers use, and make it factual rather than promotional — it is a description, not an advertisement.
Use posts for the other language
Profile posts are frequent and disposable, which makes them the natural place to publish in the second language without touching the fields that carry your identity.
Reply to reviews in kind
An Arabic review gets an Arabic reply, an English review an English one. This is the most visible bilingual signal on the whole profile and it costs nothing.
Let the website carry the parity
Two indexable language versions of each branch page, linked to each other, is where genuine bilingual coverage lives. The profile points at one of them; make sure it points at the right one.
The website is the part people under-use. A profile links to one URL, and on a bilingual site that should be the version matching your primary audience, with a visible switcher on the page for everyone else. Sending Arabic-speaking customers to an English page and expecting the profile to compensate is asking one field to do a website's job.
Which categories should you choose?
The fewest that describe the core business. Google's guidance is explicit about choosing the fewest number of categories it takes to describe what you actually do, rather than claiming everything adjacent [1], and category choice is the strongest relevance signal on the profile.
Category names are supplied by Google rather than written by you, which removes the language question but introduces a different one: the closest available category is sometimes not a perfect description. Choose the one that best matches the core business anyway, and use the services and products fields to express the specifics — that is what they are for.
| Information | Where it goes | Language |
|---|---|---|
| Business name | Name field, once | One form only, no transliteration |
| What you do broadly | Primary and secondary categories | Chosen from Google's list |
| What you do specifically | Services and products | Your primary customer language |
| Story and detail | Description | One language, chosen deliberately |
| Ongoing news | Posts | Alternate, or duplicate per language |
| Full bilingual coverage | Your own website | Both, on separate URLs |
How do you get the profile verified?
Verification is the step that turns a profile you have filled in into one that appears. Google offers several methods and does not let you pick freely — the options it shows depend on the business, the category and what it already knows about the address [3].
Video verification is the one worth preparing for, because it is increasingly the method offered and it is the one people fail. It asks for a single unbroken recording that ties three things together: the location, evidence that the business operates there, and evidence that you are authorised to manage it. A walk that starts outside with the street and the signage, moves through the entrance, shows the interior and any branded equipment, and ends on something only a manager would have — a till, a back office, keys, stock — satisfies all three in one take.
The failure modes are mundane and repeat everywhere. Recording in portrait fragments rather than one continuous take. Signage in one language when the profile name is in the other, so the reviewer cannot match them. A unit in a tower with no visible number. Filming after dark. An address the postal network cannot reach, chosen on the assumption that a postcard was coming.
A rejection is not permanent, and it usually is not a judgement about whether the business is real. Re-record with the gaps closed rather than appealing the same footage, and expect the profile to stay unlisted until it clears, because an unverified profile does not compete for anything.
What about the address and phone number?
Consistency matters more than which form you pick. Decide the canonical written address and phone format once, in each language, and use the Arabic form in Arabic contexts and the English form in English ones — never both in one field.
The failure this prevents is entity confusion. A business written one way on its site, another in a directory and a third on the profile is, to any machine reading the web, a candidate for being three businesses with similar names. Prominence is assessed per entity, so splitting yourself across three of them divides whatever you have earned.
How should reviews be handled in two languages?
Reply in the language of the review, every time, briefly and as a person rather than as a template. A profile where Arabic reviews get Arabic answers is telling a customer something that no description can: that the business genuinely operates in their language.
For gathering them, ask in the language the customer used and make the link one tap. The ask should happen at the natural moment — when the work is finished and the customer is satisfied — rather than in a later campaign, because a campaign produces a burst and a burst is a pattern.
Recency is what a reader actually judges. A profile whose latest review is a year old reads as a business that might have closed, however many it collected before that. A few every month beats many once, and it is also easier to sustain.
What does this do for relevance and prominence?
Both, which is why the profile is the first thing to fix rather than the last. Google names relevance, distance and prominence as the factors behind local results [2], and a complete profile is most of what relevance is made of: the categories, the services, the description and the attributes are your statement of what you are relevant to.
Prominence comes from elsewhere — reviews, mentions, links, being listed where your category is discussed — but a profile with the wrong details actively undermines it, because the mentions elsewhere no longer clearly refer to the same business.
The bilingual mistake is almost never a translation problem. It is a business that created a second listing to serve its second language, and then spent two years wondering why neither of them ranked.
What to do this week
Find and merge any duplicates. Fix the name field so it carries one form of the name and nothing else. Fill the categories, services and attributes in completely. Set the description in your primary customer language. Check the linked URL points at the right language version of the right page. Then start replying to reviews in kind, and keep doing it.
If you sell online as well, the profile and the store should present one identity rather than two — the Salla SEO guide covers the store half of that, and it is worth doing in the same week rather than as a separate project.
Getting the category field right matters more than any other single field on the profile — choosing Google Business Profile categories covers how to pick a primary and secondary set without guessing.
A profile is a local signal, not a national one — if the business itself operates across more than one country, international SEO site structure covers the site-level decision that a single profile cannot solve.
Questions people also ask
Can I put my business name in both Arabic and English?
No. Google's guidelines specifically prohibit repeating the same business name in multiple scripts or languages in the name field, even where the physical signage does exactly that. Use one name, in the form the business is genuinely known by.
Should I create a second profile for Arabic customers?
No. One profile per business is the rule, and a duplicate is a risk to the listing you already have rather than an addition to it.
Which language should the business description be in?
The one your customers use most. The description is a single field, so it is a choice rather than a pair, and the rest of the bilingual work happens through posts, replies and your own website.
How do I handle reviews written in Arabic?
Reply in the language the review was written in, briefly and factually. Bilingual replies on a profile are visible evidence to a customer that the business operates in their language.
What if a wrong Arabic version of my business already exists?
Claim it if you can, then merge or remove the duplicate rather than leaving both live. Two listings for one business split your reviews, your photos and your prominence between them.
Sources
- Guidelines for representing your business on Google — Google Business Profile Help (checked 11 September 2026)
- How Google Business Profile ranking works — Google Business Profile Help (checked 11 September 2026)
- Verify your business on Google — Google Business Profile Help (checked 12 September 2026)
- Search engine market share, Saudi Arabia — Statcounter (August 2026)
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Who wrote this
Jeremy ZavaCo-founder
Leads growth and client partnerships.
Works on: CRO, SEO
Reviewed before publishing by Ibrahem Helal, Co-founder.
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