Which Industries Are Regulated for Local SEO?

The following industries may have limitations in Local SEO These limitations on Google’s end are global.
:

These businesses are not eligible for a GBP or Local SEO in any country:

📌 However, we can still support these businesses with Organic SEO and website optimization.

Educational institutions:
- Reviews and ratings will be removed and disabled for Google Business Profiles primarily categorized as educational institutions for students aged 6 to 18 due to a policy on Google’s end. We cannot complete Review Requests for these businesses.
HIPAA-compliant and GDPR-compliant advertisers:
- We can help generate more reviews via text or email for HIPAA advertisers. If you are a HIPAA advertiser, secure upload instructions will be sent separately.

Posts:
- Some regulated industries can use GBP posts, but not for the restricted product or service itself.
- Some business categories aren’t allowed to post at all—your Campaign Manager will let you know and swap in another optimization.
Q&A Section:
- Not available for some educational institutions on GBP listings.
Google Products Section:
- Can’t be used for regulated products like alcohol, tobacco, gambling, drugs, financial services, etc.

We can respond to reviews, but:
- We cannot mention any personal health information (PHI).
- Even if a patient mentions PHI in their review, we must still keep responses brief and general.

📌This applies to the GDPR in the UK and Canada as well.

Some industries face limitations when using Google Business Profiles (GBP) and running Local SEO due to Google’s policies. Below is a summary of what’s allowed and what’s not.