The short answer
Change your hours in every place customers find them: the website (header, footer, contact page), your Google Business Profile, structured data on the site, and directories and social profiles. Use special hours for holidays. Keep your business name, address and phone identical everywhere. Tell us the exact days, times and start date.
Why consistency is the whole job
The point of publishing hours is that people can rely on them. When sources disagree, the person deciding where to go has to guess, and a guess that ends at a locked door costs you a customer and annoys them. Search engines face the same problem: conflicting information makes them less sure which version is right.
The same goes for your name, address and phone number, often shortened to NAP. Use the same wording everywhere. "Main Street" and "Main St." are the same place to a person, but a small mismatch across dozens of listings makes the data look uncertain. Pick one form and copy it exactly.
Where your hours live
| Place | Who updates it | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Website header, footer, contact page | We update it on request | Hours often appear in several spots; we search for every instance |
| Structured data (schema markup) on the site | We update it with the visible text | It must match what visitors see |
| Google Business Profile | You, or us if you have given us access | Includes regular hours and special hours |
| Directories (Bing, Apple, Yelp, industry sites) | You or whoever claimed the listing | Check each one; they do not sync automatically |
| Social profiles (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn) | You | Easy to forget, and customers do look there |
| Email signatures, booking tools, auto-replies | You | Often hold old phone numbers or hours |
How to update the website
- 1Write the new details exactly as they should appear: days, opening and closing times, time zone if relevant, the date they start, and whether they are permanent or temporary.
- 2Tell us if the phone number or address is changing too, and whether the new number should be the clickable one on mobile.
- 3We find every place the hours appear on the site, not only the contact page, including the header bar, footer, location page, and any text mentioning "open until 5."
- 4We update the structured data so it matches. Google's local business documentation describes an opening hours property that takes days and times, with optional start and end dates for seasonal changes. It also says to include the country code and area code in the phone number.
- 5You review the preview, and approve it. Then you update Google Business Profile and any directories.
Google Business Profile and special hours
Your Google Business Profile is often the first thing a customer sees, so it matters more than the website for hours. Google's guidance says to provide your regular customer-facing hours, and that you may also specify special hours for particular days such as holidays or special events. Use special hours for one-off changes instead of editing your regular hours, so the regular pattern comes back by itself.
Some business types should not list hours at all, according to Google, including hotels, schools, movie theaters, transportation services and businesses that operate only by appointment. If you have several sets of hours, Google says to follow industry conventions: a restaurant uses dine-in hours, for example, and extra hours should generally be a subset of the primary ones. See Google Business Profile basics for the larger picture.
Holiday and seasonal hours
Plan holiday hours two or three weeks ahead. Write a list: the date, whether you are closed or open, and the hours. Add them to Google as special hours, put a short notice on the website, and add the same note to social profiles. Remove the website notice once the holiday has passed so it does not sit there for months.
For seasonal schedules, such as summer hours from June to August, use start and end dates where the system allows, so the site switches back by itself.
Example: A dental clinic changes its hours and phone
A clinic moves from 8-5 weekdays to 8-6 Monday to Thursday and 8-1 on Friday, from the 1st of next month, with a new phone number. The owner sends us: "New hours from the 1st: Mon-Thu 8:00-18:00, Fri 8:00-13:00, closed weekends. New phone: +46 8 555 0100 (old one stays on divert for 3 months). Please update header, footer, contact and location pages." We find hours in four places, plus the schema, and update them all for the preview. The owner approves, then updates Google Business Profile and the two directories on the day. Nobody sees conflicting hours.
Phone and address changes
A phone number change is riskier than hours because the old number may be printed on vans, brochures and old listings. Keep the old number working or diverted for as long as you can, and change the new one everywhere in a batch. Use the full international format in structured data.
An address change is bigger. Besides the site and Google Business Profile, it affects maps, directions, delivery information and, for businesses with a local presence, your local search presence. Tell us early, and tell your project manager if it means pages for the old location should be kept, changed or redirected.
Never mark a phone number or address as changed on your website until the change is real. Customers act on what they read.
When to ask us
Send a request through the support form with the exact new hours, phone and address, the date they start, and whether they are temporary. List the places you know show them. Tell us if you want us to update your Google Business Profile and have already given access through Google's own sharing, since we never ask for or accept passwords. We can then check the site, the structured data and the listings that we manage. For help on the general process, see request a website update.
