Somebody quoted you for weekly Google posts. Here is what they actually do.

Weekly Google posts turn up in a lot of local marketing proposals, usually as a line item with a monthly number attached and a vague promise about staying active.

We do not sell that, which is worth knowing before you read the rest of this. Here is what the feature is, documented rather than pitched.

What a post is, and where it goes

There are three types: Updates, Offers, and Events. An Offer requires a title, dates and a time, and can carry a description, photo, video, coupon code, link and terms. An Event needs a title plus start and end dates and times.

Where they surface matters more than most people check. Posts appear in the Updates or Overview tabs on mobile Search and Maps, and in the "From the owner" section on desktop. Featured posts may show directly on a mobile profile.

Read that as what it is: a section people reach by tapping through, not the first thing a customer sees. Your rating and your photos have already done the persuading long before anybody arrives at your update about the weather.

The six-month rule

Posts older than six months are archived unless a date range is set.

That single sentence explains why so many profiles look abandoned. A business posts enthusiastically for a month, stops, and eventually the evidence quietly disappears. Offers and Events carry their own dates and behave predictably; a plain Update just ages out.

The restriction that catches everyone

Phone numbers are prohibited in post descriptions.

Which is precisely what every local business wants to write, because the whole point of the exercise is to make somebody call. The workaround is the action button rather than the text, and the profile already carries your number in the place people look for it.

The rest of the restricted list is what you would expect: no inappropriate or explicit material, no malware links, nothing about alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, gambling or weapons, and a general requirement to stay professional and family-friendly.

When a post earns its place

Three situations, and they are all specific rather than habitual. A genuine offer with real dates on it, where the Offer type gives you a proper button. A genuine event customers might attend. And a temporary operational change worth announcing, which pairs with the closure and special-hours controls when you are shut or working reduced hours.

Each of those has a reason to exist beyond keeping a schedule. Somebody reading it learns something they could act on.

When it does not

The weekly-post-for-rankings pitch is the part to be careful with. Google documents what posts are, where they appear, and when they archive. It does not document a ranking benefit, and we are not going to assert one in either direction on its behalf.

What that means practically is that if somebody is charging you monthly for posting on the basis that it improves your local rankings, the claim is theirs rather than Google's, and it is fair to ask what it rests on.

If the same hour went into reviews arriving steadily instead, you would be working on the thing customers actually read before they call. That is not an argument against ever posting. It is an argument against buying it as a subscription.

If a proposal has landed with weekly posts on it and you want a straight answer on whether it is worth the line item, book a strategy call. Sometimes it is, usually alongside something with a date attached, and it is a short conversation either way.