Search Engineers Identifies Google Business Profile Misalignment as the Most Common Entity Authority Gap Suppressing Google AI Overview Appearances for Professional Service Businesses

AI Search Engineers says its internal audit of professional service categories identified three Google Business Profile fields—business name, primary category, and business description—as the most consistently misaligned signals affecting Google AI Overviews visibility. The agency argues that the fastest improvement comes from a specific update sequence that aligns those fields with the canonical entity definition a business uses on its website. It says Google AI Overviews weigh entity-level signals, and Google Business Profile is treated as a high-authority corroboration source for information found on websites. When the profile name or category contradicts the website (for example “Smith Law” vs “Smith Law Firm”), the mismatch can reduce appearances for local queries, regardless of other signals.