Google's guidelines for representing your business on Google now list "Repeated Bilingual Names / Script Transliterations" as something a business name must not include, and the rule applies even when the dual-script name is what appears on the physical shopfront. Search Engine Roundtable reported the addition on 10 August 2026 after Hiroko Imai spotted it and wrote about it on LinkedIn, and the rule is on Google's own support page, which is the document that governs whether a Business Profile stays live.
What the guideline actually says
The line sits inside the name section of Google's guidelines for representing your business on Google, in the table of examples of what a business name must not include. Google's wording for the prohibited item is "Repeating the same business name in multiple scripts or languages, even if it appears this way on physical storefront signage".
Google gives two examples of names that are not acceptable under the rule: "Kafiex / カフィエクス" and "Burger King バーガーキング". The acceptable versions Google shows alongside them are simply "Kafiex" and "Burger King", each in a single script.
The framing at the top of that section has not changed. Google still says your name "should reflect your business's real-world name, as used consistently on your storefront, website, stationery, and as known to customers", and still warns that "Including unnecessary information in your business name isn't permitted, and could result in the suspension of your Business Profile". The bilingual rule is a new entry in a list that already treats the name field as a field with one correct answer. You can read the guidelines in full on Google's support site.
Where the rule sits among the other name prohibitions
The bilingual entry has been added to a table Google has maintained for years, and reading it next to its neighbours shows what kind of rule it is. The examples below are Google's own, taken from that table.
| What the name must not include | Google's example of what is not acceptable | Google's acceptable version |
|---|---|---|
| Repeated bilingual names and script transliterations | Kafiex / カフィエクス | Kafiex |
| Repeated bilingual names and script transliterations | Burger King バーガーキング | Burger King |
| Marketing taglines | TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank | TD Bank |
| Store codes | The UPS Store - 2872 | The UPS Store |
| Fully capitalized words | SUBWAY | Subway |
The company it keeps matters. Taglines, store codes and capitalisation are all treated by Google as unnecessary information rather than as an alternative way of writing the name, and unnecessary information is the category Google explicitly ties to profile suspension. A dual-script name has been placed in that same bucket.
The signage argument no longer works
The most consequential six words in the new rule are "even if it appears this way on physical storefront signage". Hiroko Imai, who spotted the change and posted about it on LinkedIn, made this point directly: the wording closes off the loophole of submitting a storefront photo as justification for a dual-script name.
That matters because photographic evidence of signage has been the standard way of arguing a name is legitimate. A business whose sign carries the Thai name above the English name has, until now, had a reasonable case that the profile was simply reflecting reality. Google's new wording answers that case in advance. The name field takes one script even where the shopfront takes two.
Imai also noted that although Google chose Japanese examples, the policy reaches any business operating in a multilingual or multi-script region, including businesses using English alongside Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic or other scripts. That reading follows from the wording itself, which refers to multiple scripts or languages in general rather than to any particular pair.
Why the name field is the dangerous one
Business name violations are among the more common triggers for profile suspension, a point Imai raised in her post. The mechanism is worth understanding because it changes how you should sequence any correction work.
An edit to the name field is a high-scrutiny edit. Unlike a change to opening hours or a photo upload, a name change tends to route into review, and a profile that is already carrying a policy-violating name is a profile where any review is starting from a weak position. Reinstatement, when a profile is suspended, is a separate process from editing, and it typically means proving the business is real and that the profile complies. The practical asymmetry is that fixing a name yourself is a small task, while recovering a suspended profile is an open-ended one during which the listing is not visible.
That asymmetry is the argument for doing this deliberately rather than in bulk over a weekend. A chain with forty locations that edits forty names on the same day is generating forty simultaneous reviews on profiles that share an owner account.
What this means for Thai marketers
Google did not name Thailand anywhere in the guideline, and the examples it chose are Japanese. The reasoning below is about how the rule as written lands on the Thai market, not a claim about anything Google said.
A large share of businesses in Bangkok list on Google Maps with the Thai name and the English name in the same field, separated by a slash, a space, or brackets. Under the wording now on Google's page, that construction is what the rule describes: the same business name repeated in two scripts. The shopfront defence, which in Thailand is often genuinely true because bilingual signage is standard on retail and restaurant frontages, is the specific defence the new wording removes.
Two situations are different from each other and should not be handled the same way. A name that is the same word twice, once in Thai script and once in Latin script, is the case the rule addresses. A name where the Thai and English parts are different words, or where the legal entity name genuinely contains both, is not obviously the same thing, and Google's page does not work through that distinction. If your listing falls in the second group, the honest position is that the guideline as published does not resolve it.
For businesses that depend on map visibility, the name field is not a cosmetic setting, and a suspension takes the listing out of the local pack entirely. Anyone running local SEO across multiple Thai branches should treat the name audit as the first item rather than a housekeeping task for later.
Choosing which script to keep
Once you accept that one script has to go, the decision should be led by search demand rather than by internal preference, and the data to make it already exists in most accounts.
Look at how customers actually search for the brand. Query data from Search Console and from the Google Business Profile performance report will show whether people type the Thai spelling or the Latin one, and the answer is often not what the head office assumes. A brand with a Latin-alphabet parent name may still be searched overwhelmingly in Thai script by walk-in customers, and a Thai brand with an international position may be the reverse. Ranking your existing branded query volume by script is a short exercise that produces a defensible answer, and it is the same input you would use for a wider SEO programme in Thailand.
Two qualifiers. Removing a script from the name does not remove it from the profile: the description, the posts, the reviews and the website all still carry the language you drop, and Google's matching for local results has never depended on the name field alone. And for a transliterated brand with no Latin original, where the Latin spelling exists only because somebody romanised the Thai, the Thai spelling is usually the real-world name and the Latin one is the transliteration the rule is aimed at.
An audit checklist for a multi-location chain
The work is mechanical, and the order matters more than the speed.
- Export every location's current name from the Business Profile account and sort by name, not by branch, so duplicate constructions group together.
- Flag every name containing two scripts. In practice this means checking for Thai characters and Latin characters in the same string, which a spreadsheet formula can do faster than a person.
- Separate the true repetitions, where both halves say the same thing, from the cases where the second half is a different word, a district name, or a legal suffix. The location-information and store-code rules already cover some of those, so a name may be failing two rules at once.
- Decide the surviving script once, at brand level, and apply it consistently. Fifty branches with a mixture of Thai-only and English-only names is a worse outcome than either choice made uniformly.
- Correct in batches over time rather than all at once, and keep a record of the previous name for each location so you can evidence the change if a review asks.
- Check the additional rules for chains and brands, which Google links from the same page and which apply on top of the general name guidance.
What Google did not say
The support page states the rule and gives examples. It does not answer the operational questions, and the gaps are large enough to be worth listing.
Google's page does not give an enforcement start date, and does not say whether the rule applies retroactively to profiles created before it appeared. It does not say whether existing dual-script listings will be edited automatically, quietly downgraded, or suspended. It does not explain how to choose which script should be primary, or offer any criterion for the choice. It does not describe a second field where a localised name can live instead. It does not mention any bulk-edit tooling for correcting names across a large location set. And it does not say what happens to a profile whose registered legal name genuinely includes both scripts.
Anyone telling you the deadline is a specific date is filling those blanks themselves. The rule is published; the enforcement timetable is not.
FAQ
Is my Bangkok listing breaking this rule if it shows the Thai and English name together?
If both parts say the same business name in different scripts, that is the construction Google's page describes as not acceptable. The examples Google gives are a Latin name followed by the same name in Japanese script, so a Latin name followed by the same name in Thai script is the direct parallel.
Will Google suspend my profile for this?
The page does not say what enforcement looks like or when it starts. What Google does say on the same page is that including unnecessary information in a business name is not permitted and could result in suspension of the Business Profile, and the bilingual entry now sits in that list.
Does this apply in Thailand?
Google's page names no countries and its examples are Japanese, so it does not address Thailand specifically. The rule as written refers to multiple scripts or languages generally, which is why it reads as applying to any market where dual-script naming is normal.
Can I keep both names if that is what my sign says?
No, according to the wording Google added. The rule says a business name must not repeat the same name in multiple scripts or languages "even if it appears this way on physical storefront signage", which removes signage as a justification.
Which script should I keep?
Google's page does not say, so the choice is yours to make on evidence. Branded query volume by script, from Search Console and from the profile's own performance data, is the most useful input available.
If you would like a second opinion on which of your locations are exposed and which script your customers actually search, our local search team is happy to run through the list with you.
