Google discontinued Business Profile's original native Chat feature on 31 July 2024, deleting existing conversations after barely two weeks' public notice. In early 2025 it replaced that with something simpler: a Chat section inside Edit Profile where you link your own WhatsApp number or an SMS line, shown only to people searching on mobile. It's free and worth turning on in under two minutes — but it's still a Google-controlled surface that can change exactly like the one before it. Treat it as one more entry point to your WhatsApp number, not a replacement for the WhatsApp button that should already sit on every page of your own website.
A Mumbai dietitian checks her Google Business Profile one afternoon and notices a small chat icon that wasn't there before, sitting next to the call button. She taps it, half expecting a dead end, and instead finds a simple screen offering to open WhatsApp. She assumes Google built a whole new messaging system. What actually happened is narrower, and worth understanding before treating it as the main way customers will reach her.
Google has now gone through two different messaging features on Business Profile in under three years — one it built, ran, and then shut down with very little warning, and a second, simpler one that just forwards to a number the business already owns. The gap between those two tells you almost everything about how much weight either one deserves.
It's A Link To Your Own WhatsApp Or SMS Number, Not A New Inbox Google Manages
The Chat option now found under Edit Profile → Contact doesn't give a business a new number, a new inbox, or a new app to check. It simply lets a business attach its existing WhatsApp click-to-chat link, or a phone number that accepts SMS, so that a mobile searcher sees a chat icon on the listing and gets forwarded straight to that number when they tap it. Nothing about the conversation itself happens on Google's side once that tap occurs — it lands in the same WhatsApp inbox the business already checks.
Google Shut Down Business Profile's Original Messaging Feature With About Two Weeks' Public Notice
Business Profile used to run its own native chat feature, letting a customer message a business directly from the listing and letting the owner see a call-history log alongside it. Google discontinued both. From 15 July 2024, no new conversations could be started. By 31 July 2024, the feature was fully switched off, existing conversations were deleted, and the call-history log became inaccessible. Businesses that wanted to keep a record of either had a narrow window — through Google Takeout, with a final deadline around the end of August 2024 — before that data was gone for good.
None of this was announced as a dramatic headline. It moved through Google's own Business Profile help pages and was picked up afterwards by local-SEO publications once business owners started noticing the chat icon had simply disappeared. For a feature some businesses had come to rely on for genuine customer conversations, that's a short runway.
The Replacement Is A WhatsApp Or SMS Link You Add Yourself, Not A Built-In Chat Tool
Roughly six months after the shutdown, Google began rolling out a narrower replacement: the ability to add a WhatsApp or SMS contact option directly inside the Chat section of Edit Profile. It isn't a return to the old feature. There's no inbox on Google's side, no message history stored against the listing, and — so far — it only appears to people searching on a mobile device, not on desktop. A business sets it up once, and from then on a tap on the chat icon simply opens the business's own WhatsApp (or sends an SMS) the same way a wa.me link on a website does.
| Messaging Option | Who Actually Controls It | Where It's Visible |
|---|---|---|
| Old GBP Chat (shut down July 2024) | Google — ran the inbox, held the message history | Both mobile and desktop listings, while it existed |
| New GBP Chat Link (added 2025) | Google decides if, where and how long it shows; you only supply the number | Mobile search results only, not desktop |
| WhatsApp button on your own website | You — it's your domain, your number, your page | Every page, every visitor, every device, permanently |
Turning On Your Business Profile's WhatsApp Link Takes Four Steps
There's no approval process or waiting period involved — it's a profile field, not a feature request.
Open your Business Profile and select Edit profile
From Google Search or Google Maps, search your own business name while signed into the account that manages the listing.
Scroll to the Contact section and find Chat
It sits alongside your phone number and website link, not under a separate messaging menu.
Add the same WhatsApp number already on your website
Using the identical number keeps every channel — your site, your profile, your printed materials — pointing at one inbox, not several.
Save, then check it from an actual phone
Search your own listing on mobile data or mobile wifi — a desktop check won't show whether the chat icon is actually live.
A Channel You Don't Own Is Worth Using, But Never Worth Depending On
This blog keeps returning to a version of the same argument — about a WhatsApp button replacing a contact form, about a business's own FAQ page replacing Business Profile's discontinued Q&A section, about a written case study replacing a borrowed testimonial. Hashika Vyas DT, a Mumbai-based clinical dietitian, and Hamara Ashiyana, a real estate brand built from zero to a #1 Google ranking, both grew by making sure the channel a customer actually used to reach them was one the business fully controlled, not one rented from a platform that can change its mind. Business Profile's chat link is a convenient extra door into that same WhatsApp number — it was never meant to be the only one.
A Feature Google Has Already Removed Once Shouldn't Be Where Your Main WhatsApp Link Lives First
The old chat feature didn't fail because businesses misused it. Google simply decided, on its own schedule, to retire it — and businesses that had come to depend on it for genuine customer conversations lost that channel with about two weeks' notice and no say in the decision. The 2025 replacement is more useful, but it carries the same basic risk: it exists entirely inside Google's product, on Google's terms, visible only where and how Google currently chooses to show it.
Where a customer actually finds it
Only reachable through a mobile Google search of your exact listing — invisible on desktop, and gone the moment Google changes the feature again.
Visible on every page, on every device, to anyone who finds your website through search, a shared link, an ad, or a saved bookmark — permanent until you decide otherwise.
Add the door Google just built. Don't tear down the one that was already yours.
Add The Same WhatsApp Link To Your Profile, Then Let Your Website Carry The Weight
The right move isn't to pick one channel over the other — it's to add Business Profile's new Chat option in the two minutes it takes, point it at the exact same number already doing the work on your site, and then keep treating your own website as the primary channel. If your site is already built around a WhatsApp-first design, this is simply one more surface pointing at a button you've already built correctly. It's also a direct sibling to Google's earlier decision to remove Business Profile's public Q&A section — a second reminder in under a year that a feature living entirely inside someone else's platform can disappear faster than it arrived, and that the safest place for anything you depend on is a page you control. It's also worth getting the basics of your listing itself right first — our note on the five Google Business Profile mistakes that get Mumbai businesses suspended covers what can quietly put the whole listing, chat link included, at risk.
Questions small business owners ask about Google Business Profile's WhatsApp link
Does Google Business Profile support WhatsApp messaging in 2026?
Yes, but not as a built-in chat tool. In early 2025 Google added a Chat section inside Edit Profile where a business can link its own WhatsApp number or an SMS-enabled number as a click-to-chat option. It is a link to a number you already own, not a new messaging system Google operates on your behalf, and it currently shows up only to people searching on mobile, not on desktop.
What happened to Google Business Profile's original chat feature?
Google discontinued the original native messaging feature inside Business Profile on 31 July 2024. New conversations stopped being possible from 15 July 2024, and once the feature was switched off, existing conversations and call-history records were deleted, with Google Takeout available as the only way to download that data, until a deadline in late August 2024.
How do I add a WhatsApp link to my Google Business Profile?
Open your Business Profile and select Edit profile, scroll to the Contact section, and look for Chat. From there you can add the same WhatsApp click-to-chat link already on your website, or a phone number that accepts SMS, and save. It takes about two minutes, and it is worth checking from an actual mobile phone afterwards, since it will not appear in a desktop search of your own listing.
Will turning on Google Business Profile's WhatsApp link affect my local SEO ranking?
There is no confirmed link between having a messaging option turned on and where a listing ranks in Google Search or Maps. It is worth adding because it gives a mobile searcher one more way to reach you with zero extra cost, not because it changes your ranking position.
Should I remove the WhatsApp button from my own website now that my Google Business Profile has one?
No. Google's Business Profile chat link only appears to mobile searchers on Google's own platform, and Google has already discontinued the feature that came before it once, with about two weeks' public notice. The WhatsApp button already built into your website is visible to every visitor, on every device, from a page you fully control, and should stay the primary way people reach you — Google Business Profile's link is a useful extra entry point, not a replacement for it.
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