local seo
Google’s updated Local Services Ads call policy goes live October 1, 2026. After that date, you may be charged for missed calls when the caller stays connected for more than 20 seconds—even if no one picks up.
If you run LSA campaigns for a contracting business, HVAC company, plumbing shop, or any other service trade, you need to audit your call-handling setup right now.
Not next week. Not after you see weird charges on your October invoice. Today.
Local Services Ads have always charged per lead—someone fills out a form or calls your business. The old policy didn’t bill you for calls under a certain threshold or calls that disconnected immediately.
The new policy introduces a 20-second rule: if a caller stays on the line for more than 20 seconds and you don’t answer, Google may treat that as a qualified, billable lead.
The logic is straightforward from Google’s side. A caller who waits 20+ seconds is genuinely interested. They’re not a misdial. They’re a real prospect—and if your business can’t pick up, that’s on you, not the platform.
Fair or not, the clock starts October 1.
Pull up your LSA dashboard and verify where calls are going. Is it a front-desk line? A mobile phone? A call-tracking number that forwards somewhere else?
Walk the entire chain. Call the number yourself from an outside line and see what happens.
Does it ring? How many times? Does it roll to voicemail after four rings or fourteen? Is the voicemail box full? Does the greeting sound professional or like a default carrier message?
If you’re using any kind of call-routing service—something that distributes calls to multiple technicians or locations based on time of day—test it during business hours and after hours.
If a call goes to voicemail before anyone picks up, you need to know exactly how long that takes.
Count the rings. Time the greeting. Add it up.
If your system rings six times at five seconds each, that’s 30 seconds—over the threshold—before voicemail even starts. A patient caller might stay on the line. You just paid for a lead you never answered.
Shorten the ring count if you can. Make sure the voicemail greeting is brief, professional, and tells the caller what to do next. “Leave a message and we’ll call back within two hours” is better than a rambling explanation of your service area.
This is the part most businesses skip.
You can have perfect call routing and a great voicemail system, but if no one checks messages until the next morning—or worse, until Monday—you’re still losing leads.
Who’s responsible for listening to voicemail? How often? What’s the target callback time?
If you don’t have answers written down somewhere, you don’t have a process. You have hope.
Write it down. Assign it. Track it.
LSA gives you tools to dispute charges for leads you believe were invalid—wrong service area, spam, etc.
Get familiar with those tools before October 1. Know where to find your lead history. Know how to flag a call for review.
If you wait until you’re angry about a surprise charge, you’ll waste time figuring out the interface instead of actually solving the problem.
This LSA policy change is a forcing function, but the principle applies everywhere.
When a platform announces a billing change, a new feature with cost implications, or a policy shift that affects how you’re charged—audit your setup before the effective date.
Not because you’re paranoid. Because you’re in control.
We’ve seen this pattern repeat across every ad platform, every SaaS tool, every third-party service. The businesses that get blindsided are the ones who assume their old settings still make sense under new rules.
The businesses that stay profitable are the ones who block two hours on the calendar, walk through the system end to end, and fix what’s broken while there’s still time.
Whenever a platform we manage announces a policy deadline, we put it on the calendar twice.
Once for the actual deadline. Once for seven days before.
The second date is when we audit. We check routing, test workflows, verify backup procedures, and document what we find.
It’s not exciting work. No one’s going to write a case study about the time we discovered a voicemail box was full three days before a billing change.
But that’s the work that keeps small problems from becoming expensive surprises.
If you’re running Local Services Ads, you’ve got until October 1. That’s not a lot of runway.
Pick up the phone. Call your own number. See what happens.
Then fix it.
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