Google is testing a redesigned performance report inside Google Business Profile, and the early screenshots show a much deeper set of metrics than the current version offers. Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz reported the test on October 23, 2026, based on screenshots sent in by two users who can already see it. If it rolls out broadly, the new Google Business Profile performance reports will give local businesses more detail on engagement, reviews, audience, and search trends than they get today.
Nothing here is officially confirmed by Google yet. That matters for how you should treat this story, and I will flag what is solid and what is still a guess throughout this piece.
This article breaks down what the Google Business Profile performance reports test actually shows and how it compares to the report you can see right now. It also covers what local marketers should do while they wait for an official rollout.
What Google Is Testing in Business Profile Performance Reports
According to Schwartz’s report, the test adds five sections to the performance report: Overview, Engagement, Reviews, Audience, and Search trends. Each section appears to replace a single flat chart with a focused view built around one topic.
Schwartz did not see the feature in his own account. He based the writeup on screenshots from Jaikishan Raturi of Wisevu, who sent light-mode images. Syed Amir later posted dark-mode screenshots and a short video on X. Schwartz called the redesign “a very big improvement” over what business owners see today.
No test group size, rollout timeline, or percentage of accounts has been shared. This looks like a small, limited test at this stage, the kind Google runs before deciding whether to expand a feature or quietly drop it.
Google has a long history of testing changes to Business Profile in small batches before any public confirmation. Past examples include new attribute fields, messaging options, and booking links that showed up for a handful of accounts weeks or months before a wider release. The pattern with performance reports looks the same so far.
How Current Google Business Profile Reports Fall Short
Today’s performance report in Google Business Profile is useful but thin. It shows basic counts: calls, direction requests, website clicks, and how many times your listing appeared in Search and Maps. You can filter by date range and compare periods, but you cannot dig much deeper than that.
Google’s own help documentation describes the current report as a summary view, not a diagnostic one. It tells you what happened, not why it happened or what to do about it. For a business owner trying to decide whether a slow month was a visibility problem or a conversion problem, that gap has always been frustrating.
This is the context that makes the new Google Business Profile performance reports test worth watching. It is less about adding one more chart and more about restructuring the whole report around clearer questions.
New Sections Found in the Performance Reports Test
Based on the screenshots Schwartz reviewed, here is what each section of the Google Business Profile performance report appears to cover.
Overview and Recommendations
The Overview tab works as a landing page for the report, with a summary of recent activity. It also includes a recommendations area, which likely surfaces specific actions Google thinks would help the listing, such as adding photos or responding to reviews.
If this holds up in a wider release, it moves Business Profile closer to tools like Google Ads. That platform already nudges advertisers toward specific account changes through its own recommendations tab.
Engagement
The Engagement section appears to track how people interact with the listing beyond a basic click count. That likely includes actions like tapping to call, requesting directions, visiting the website, or messaging the business, broken out in more detail than the current single summary view.
Reviews
Schwartz specifically called out a “more detailed, broken-out reviews view.” The current reviews tab in Business Profile lists reviews and an average rating. It does little, though, to show trends over time or flag unanswered reviews that need a response.
A dedicated reviews section inside the performance report, rather than a separate tab entirely, would make review management part of the same workflow as everything else.
Audience
An Audience section suggests Google may show more about who is finding the listing, potentially by device, by how they searched, or by new versus returning visitors. None of this is confirmed in detail yet, since the screenshots Schwartz saw did not include a full breakdown of this tab’s contents.
Search Trends
The Search trends section likely shows which queries are driving impressions and clicks to the listing, similar in spirit to query data in Google Search Console. For local businesses, that kind of query-level visibility has been missing from Business Profile for years.
How This Compares to Other Local Marketing Reporting Tools
Third-party local marketing platforms, such as review management and rank tracking tools, have filled the gap the current Google Business Profile report leaves open for years. Many of them pull in review trends, keyword rankings, and listing visibility from several sources, including Google, Bing Places, and Yelp, into a single dashboard.
That extra layer of reporting exists largely because Google’s own numbers have been too shallow to satisfy an agency or a multi-location brand. If the new Google Business Profile performance reports test becomes a full release, it would not replace those third-party tools outright, since most of them cover more than one platform. But it would close some of the specific gaps, like review trend tracking and query-level search data, that pushed marketers toward paid tools in the first place.
Is This Confirmed? What We Know and What We Don’t
Here is the honest state of the Google Business Profile performance reports test as of this writing. It is unconfirmed by Google, visible to at least two users who shared screenshots, and described secondhand by a journalist who has not seen it himself. Treat every detail about the new Google Business Profile performance reports as provisional until Google says otherwise.
That is not a knock on the reporting. Schwartz has covered Google product tests for years. Relying on user screenshots is standard practice when Google rolls out a change to a small test group without a public announcement. But it does mean a few things are still open:
- Whether this becomes a permanent feature or gets pulled after testing
- How wide the rollout will go and on what timeline
- Whether the final version matches what early testers are seeing
- Whether any of this requires a paid plan or stays free for all verified listings
My take: Google runs dozens of these quiet tests on Business Profile every year, and most never get a public blog post even after they ship. Based on how substantial this redesign looks, I would treat it as a likely future rollout rather than a one-off experiment that disappears. That is an opinion, not a confirmed fact, so plan around it loosely.
Overlap With the Google Business Home Portal
Schwartz noted that this test sits alongside a separate change he covered the day before: updates to the Google Business Home portal. The two overlap somewhat, since Business Home is also where many owners manage their listing and check performance data.
Google has been consolidating business-facing tools under Business Home for a while. A redesigned performance report appearing there, rather than only in the classic Business Profile manager, would fit that pattern and raises a real question about which interface sticks around long term.
What This Means for Local Marketers and Small Businesses
If you manage Google Business Profile listings for clients or for your own business, this test is worth watching but not worth panicking over. Nothing in the current report is going away yet, and no action is required today.
What it does signal is a direction: Google wants performance reporting that supports decisions, not just activity counts. Agencies that report on local visibility every month should expect more granular review and engagement data to become available at some point. That will likely change what clients expect to see in a monthly report.
For businesses that depend heavily on local search, such as home services, restaurants, and healthcare practices, more visibility into search trends data would close a real gap. Right now, a lot of local SEO work is driven by surface-level call and click counts. Query-level insight stays largely limited to the basic local SEO checklist steps rather than real data from a Google Business Profile performance report.
How to Prepare for New Google Business Profile Performance Reports
You cannot opt into a test Google has not announced, but you can get ready for whatever lands.
- Check your account regularly. Google-rolled tests often show up without warning. Look at your Business Profile performance tab every week or two over the next month.
- Clean up your review response habits now. If a more visible reviews section does arrive, unanswered reviews will stand out more than they do today.
- Audit your current photos and posts. A recommendations section, if it ships as shown, is likely to flag gaps like missing photos or stale information first.
- Document your current baseline numbers. Screenshot or export your existing call, click, and direction request counts so you have a before-and-after comparison if the report structure changes.
- Watch official Google channels. Google sometimes confirms a test weeks after users first spot it, through the Google Business Profile Help Community or its support documentation.
Pros and Cons of the Redesigned Reports
Based on what is visible in the Google Business Profile performance reports test so far, here is an honest read on who benefits and who might find the change disruptive.
Likely pros:
- More useful data for local marketers who currently rely on blunt call and click counts
- A dedicated reviews view that could make response tracking easier
- Search trend data that starts to close the query-visibility gap with Search Console
- Built-in recommendations that could help less technical business owners act on their own data
Likely cons:
- Anyone who built reporting templates or dashboards around the current report layout may need to rebuild them
- More tabs and sections mean more to check, which adds time for agencies managing many listings
- Overlap with the Business Home portal could leave two half-finished reporting experiences for a while
- Small business owners with limited time may find a more complex report harder to act on, not easier
Who this is for: agencies and in-house marketers who already treat Business Profile data seriously and want more of it. Who this is not for: anyone looking for a quick glance at whether the phone rang more this month. That use case is already served fine by the current report.
Common Questions About the Google Business Profile Performance Reports Test
When will the new Google Business Profile performance reports launch?
Nobody outside Google has a confirmed date. Barry Schwartz reported the test on October 23, 2026, and Google has not acknowledged it publicly as of this writing. Based on how Google has handled similar Business Profile tests in the past, a public rollout, if it happens, would most likely arrive weeks to months later.
Will the new reports cost extra or require a paid plan?
There is no indication either way yet. Google Business Profile’s core reporting has always been free for verified listings, and nothing in the screenshots Schwartz reviewed suggests that is changing.
Do I need to do anything right now?
No. Treat the Google Business Profile performance reports test as an early signal, not an action item. The steps in the preparation section above are reasonable habits regardless of whether this exact test reaches your account.
Why This Matters
This Google Business Profile performance reports test points at a real gap in local search tooling. The free, default reporting most businesses rely on has stayed basic for years, while paid rank tracking and review tools filled in the blanks. A more detailed native report would reduce the need for some of that extra tooling.
Keep an eye on your own account over the coming weeks. Save a snapshot of your current metrics, and tighten up your review responses regardless of whether this specific test reaches you. Those habits pay off no matter how the report ends up looking.
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