Setting your service area in the GTA: what Google allows and how to write it

Why this setting matters

When a homeowner in Ajax asks Gemini for a furnace repair company, the answer depends partly on whether you serve Ajax. Google's local ranking tips say results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and that distance is how far each business is from the person searching. For a business that goes to its customers, your service area is how you tell Google where you go.

It also shapes what AI tools say. Gemini uses Google Maps information about places, and ChatGPT reads your website and listings. If your profile says Toronto, your website says "the entire GTA and beyond", and a directory still lists your old Barrie address, nobody can tell where you actually work.

What Google allows

Google's page on managing service areas sets the rules:

• Up to 20 service areas, based on cities, postal codes or other areas.
• No radius. You can't set "50 km around Vaughan". Older profiles that used a radius have to be changed to named areas.
• About two hours of driving time. Google says the overall area "shouldn't be more than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based". Its business guidelines add that larger areas may be appropriate for some businesses.
• Be specific and accurate. Google repeats this on both pages.
• Changes can take up to 48 hours to show once approved.

Hide your address if customers don't visit

Google's guidelines say a service-area business should hide its business address. Its service area page says that if you don't serve customers at your address, remove it from your profile. For most GTA HVAC companies run from a home or a shop customers never visit, that means your profile shows a service area and no street address.

If you have a real showroom or counter with signage and staff during your hours, you're a hybrid business: you can show the address and a service area.

One profile, not one per city

Google says service-area businesses can only have one profile for the whole area they serve. A second profile for "Smith Heating Mississauga" at a virtual office is against the guidelines, which say you can't list a virtual office unless it's staffed during business hours. Separate profiles are only allowed for separate locations with their own staff and service areas. Duplicate profiles are a common cause of the suspensions covered in our suspended profile guide.

Choosing your 20 places in the GTA

Twenty slots sounds like a lot until you start listing GTA municipalities. Here's a practical way to choose.

1. Start from your job history

Export last year's jobs from your scheduling or invoicing software and count them by city. Most shops find that a handful of places account for most of the work. Those go in first.

2. Match how homeowners say it

Toronto is one city, but people in Etobicoke, Scarborough and North York often search with those names. Google allows "other areas" as well as cities, so neighbourhood or former-municipality names may be available when you type them in. Try them in the service area box and see what Google suggests.

3. Use postal codes for edges

If you cover part of a large city but not all of it, a few postal code areas can describe that more accurately than the whole city. A Brampton-based shop that goes to west Toronto but not the east end can say so this way.

4. Stay inside a real day's driving

Check drive times from your base in a map app at 5 p.m. on a weekday, not at midnight. Google's two-hour guideline is a ceiling, not a target. List places you'll actually drive to on a cold Tuesday at 5 p.m.

5. Don't list places to look bigger

A profile listing 20 cities from Hamilton to Peterborough when you really work in four doesn't help you. It sends calls you'll turn down, and those homeowners may leave reviews about it.

Say the same thing on your website

Your website should name the same places, in plain text. A sentence like "We service furnaces, air conditioners and heat pumps in Mississauga, Brampton, Oakville, Etobicoke and Milton" is easy for any AI tool to read and repeat. "Serving the Greater Toronto Area" is vague, and a map image with no text says nothing to a crawler.

A good pattern:

• A service area page listing every place you cover, with any limits ("emergency calls in Mississauga and Brampton only").
• A line on each service page naming the main areas for that job, since some jobs may cover a smaller area than others.
• A footer or contact page with the same list.

Whether to build a separate page for each city is a different question with real risks. Google's spam policies list "multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page" as doorway abuse. Our city pages guide explains when one is worth building and what it needs to contain.

Keep it consistent everywhere

Once your area is set, check that the same list appears on:

• Your Google Business Profile
• Your website's service area page
• HomeStars, Yelp, the BBB and any directory you're listed on
• Bing Places and Apple Business, if you've claimed them

If an old listing says you serve Barrie because you did in 2019, fix it or remove it. Consistent facts are part of what our citations guide covers.

When to change it

Service areas aren't set-and-forget. Revisit yours when:

• You hire or lose a technician and your realistic coverage changes.
• Seasons change. If you only take emergency calls in a smaller area in winter, say so on your site, even though your Google service area stays the same.
• You move your shop. Google says that if you move to a new address after your profile is verified, you must verify again.

This week

1. Count last year's jobs by city and pick the places that make up most of your work.
2. Open your Business Profile service area, remove any radius or places you don't really serve, and add your top places, up to 20.
3. Hide your street address if customers don't come to it.
4. Write one sentence on your website that names the same places, and put it on your service area page and your main service pages.
5. Search your business name on HomeStars and two other directories and fix any area or address that doesn't match.