SEO for Restaurants: Map, Menu, and Reviews

Friday, seven thirty in the evening. A couple on the couch decides to eat out. One of them picks up a phone and types “sushi near me.”

The screen answers with a map and three cards. Each card shows a rating, the number of reviews, the price range, the type of food, and whether the place is open. Below that sits a line from some customer. In less than a minute, one of the three has won dinner.

Nobody opened a website.

On September 14, 2026, I searched Google in Brazil, where we are based, for “restaurante perto de mim” (restaurant near me). The location was the approximate one Google assigned me, in Brasília, Brazil’s capital. ¹ Four filters sat above the map: Open now, Top rated, Cuisine, and Price. Each card showed exactly the items in the scene above. ¹ In my book SEO de Entidade, published in Portuguese, the restaurant shows up in the very first chapter. Its hours and reviews appear on the map before any click. ²

The same day, I read the nine organic results for “seo para restaurante” (SEO for restaurants), also on Google in Brazil. ³ They talk about the Google profile, keywords, a fast site, photos, and reviews. The AI Overview at the top tells owners to encourage reviews. ³ Only one of the nine touches on buying reviews, in a FAQ entry. None cites Google’s review policy. And none mentions that Google can copy the menu from the site to the profile. ³

This piece follows the order of the choice. First, what a diner sees on the map and who wrote each part of it. Then the site, the menu, and the markup. After that, the other sources that talk about the restaurant, and the review rules. At the end, a sheet to check everything in one afternoon.

How people choose where to eat

The Portuguese phrase behind this page is one almost nobody types. In Semrush’s Brazil database, “seo para restaurante” had 20 searches a month on September 14, 2026. ⁴ Hungry people type something else. “Restaurante perto de mim” (restaurant near me) had 301,000 searches. “Pizzaria perto de mim” (pizzeria near me) had 110,000. “Restaurante aberto agora” (restaurant open now) had 33,100, and “cardápio” (menu) had 14,800. ⁴

Look at the shape of those searches. There is a place, the “near me.” There is a time, the “open now.” And there is a type of food: pizzeria, Japanese, steakhouse. Then comes what the person wants to do next. “Reservar restaurante” (book a restaurant) had 480 searches, and “delivery perto de mim” (delivery near me) had 3,600. ⁴

Picture the menu posted in the window of a restaurant on a busy street. People on the sidewalk read it, compare it with the place next door, and decide without going in. The map on the phone became that sidewalk, with every door in town side by side. In Google’s help pages, this is called a local result. ⁵

The same help page uses a restaurant as its example. Someone who searches for “Italian restaurant” on their phone finds places near them. ⁵ The order of those results depends mainly on relevance, distance, and prominence. ⁵ And there is no way to request or pay for a better position. ⁵ How each factor works is covered in the local SEO section.

“Open now” is explained on another help page, with a hair salon in place of the restaurant. The salon can show up for people who search “salons open now” because it provided its address and hours. ⁶ In my reading, the Open now filter depends on the same data. Wrong hours take the restaurant out of the search right when it is serving.

The type of food comes in through the profile’s category. Google’s guidelines ask for specific categories, the ones that complete the statement “This business IS a.” ⁷ A steakhouse that signs up only as a restaurant chooses to compete with more people. We measured this in a restaurant search in Brasília, in the competitor category survey.

What Business Profile offers a restaurant

Google keeps a getting-started guide just for restaurants. ⁸ It covers hours, ordering, reservations, attributes, photos, and the menu. Three rules in that set deserve attention from whoever manages the profile.

The first is hours. The guidelines tell restaurants to use the hours when diners can sit down and eat. ⁷ With no dining room, takeout hours apply. With no takeout, drive-through hours, and delivery hours come as a last resort. ⁷ Delivery, takeout, and happy hour have a place of their own, under More hours. The help asks that these generally be a subset of the main hours. ⁹

In practice, picture a restaurant that opens its dining room at noon and only delivers at night. The main hours say noon. The evening delivery goes under More hours.

The second is the menu. The profile accepts items with sections, descriptions, and prices, built in the menu editor. It accepts photos or a PDF of the menu. And it accepts a link to the menu. ¹⁰ The guidelines ask for the complete menu. Sample menus that list only “popular items” should not be submitted. ⁷ The menu link also can’t point directly to a third-party ordering or delivery service. ⁷

The third is attributes. This is where you say whether the place has outdoor seating, Wi-Fi, or a wheelchair-accessible entrance. ¹¹ The help says your business might show up in searches for places with those attributes. ¹¹ Some attributes depend on the country and the category. ¹¹ The searches exist, measured in Brazil. “Restaurante com espaço kids perto de mim” (restaurant with a kids’ area near me) had 2,400 a month. “Restaurante pet friendly” had 2,900. ⁴ Check which attributes your profile offers before you promise any of this at the door.

Ordering and reservations close the guide. The profile accepts links for booking and for food orders, up to 10 per category. ¹² Third-party providers that state they have an authorized relationship with the restaurant show up on their own. ¹³ The owner can pick a preferred one. The owner can also ask to remove a provider. The provider then has up to 5 business days to take the link down. ¹³

What customers write on the restaurant’s profile

Picture a corkboard by the exit, run by the building’s management. Any customer can pin a note or a photo there. The owner reads them, replies, and calls management when a note crosses the line. Taking notes down is not up to him. In Google Maps policy, this is called user-generated content. ¹⁴

The help page that explains where profile data comes from uses the restaurant again. Someone looking for the restaurant finds the hours and address the owner added. They also find things the owner did not add, like a link to the menu and photos of meals uploaded by customers. ⁶ The full map of who writes a profile is in the piece on becoming the go-to business in your town. At a restaurant, it gets three extra details.

Customers can post photo updates on the profile. The help cites changes to business hours and seasonal menus as examples. ¹⁵ The owner can’t stop these posts. The owner can report a photo that violates the policies, and the review can take several business days. ¹⁵

Customers also upload photos of the menu. When a photo is old or wrong, the help says to flag it and upload a correct one. ¹⁰ And the names of popular dishes can come from customers. Dish names added by the owner take precedence over theirs. ¹⁶

Reviews follow the same logic, with a policy of their own. ¹⁴ The owner replies and can flag a review they believe breaks the rules. ¹⁷ The rating on the card, the one that decides Friday’s dinner, is written by other people.

Picture a new server the night before his first shift. He takes the laminated menu from a table and copies dishes and prices onto his order pad. If the menu is smudged, he writes them down wrong. Google does similar work with the menu on your site. In Google’s help, this is called menu transcription. ¹⁰

The help says Google may transcribe menu data from the business website to the profile. ¹⁰ If the data comes out wrong, the owner edits or deletes the item. And the owner can opt out of transcription. ¹⁰

There is more than one possible source. When Google finds several menus for the same restaurant, the profile shows the options with the date of the last update. The owner picks the preferred one. ¹⁰ The same help mentions suggested menu items from a third-party provider. ¹⁰ The menu on your site enters that contest as the one source you control completely.

Now the format. The top result for “seo para restaurante” tells owners to replace the PDF and the menu image with text on the page. ³ The conclusion is right, and the reason needs a fix.

Google indexes PDFs. The format is on the official list of files it can index. ¹⁸ Images are a different case. The documentation says Google understands what an image is about through alt text, computer vision, and the content of the page. ¹⁹ It does not say Google reads every dish and price drawn into the photo.

The PDF has another problem, which is its address. It lives in a separate file, outside the page. In my reading, the risk is that last summer’s file stays online, with the old prices, after the new one goes up.

The practical rule follows from there. The menu lives as text, on a page of the site with a fixed address. It has sections, dishes, descriptions, and prices. The PDF becomes the printable copy, linked from that page. And the menu link on the profile points to that page, because the guidelines ban linking straight to third-party ordering. ⁷

On the site, the hours and address need to match the profile. Dining room hours go on one line, and delivery on another. Whoever reads the site, the profile, and the glass door finds the same restaurant.

If the restaurant takes reservations, reservations get their own page, with a fixed address. That page, or the reservation platform’s link, goes on the profile’s booking button. ¹² The site’s main page is the restaurant’s official home on the web. Its rules are in the piece on the entity home.

Structured data: what Google reads and what it shows

Schema.org, a public markup vocabulary, has a type for restaurants. Restaurant sits under FoodEstablishment, which sits under LocalBusiness. ²⁰ Those types hold the fields for the industry. servesCuisine gives the restaurant’s cuisine. acceptsReservations says whether the place takes reservations, and it can carry the address where you book. ²⁰ hasMenu points to the menu, as structure, as text, or as an address. There is also a Menu type, for food and drink items. ²⁰

Google’s documentation for local businesses asks for the most specific subtype, and names Restaurant as an example. ²¹ Among the properties Google supports are servesCuisine, opening hours, and price range. The menu property is there too, as the address of the menu. ²¹ acceptsReservations is not on that list. ²¹ One curious detail: schema.org marks hasMenu as the replacement for menu, and Google documents menu. ²⁰ ²¹

Now for what shows up on the screen. The rich results gallery has a carousel that can be combined with Restaurant. ²² The documentation warns that the restaurant carousel is limited to a small set of providers. ²¹ The gallery has no result of its own for menus. ²² To book or order right from the result, Google points to another path, the Maps Booking API. ²¹

That leaves the stars. An average rating marked up in the code is only recommended for sites that collect reviews about other local businesses. ²¹ The review rule goes further. When a business controls the reviews about itself, its pages are not eligible for stars. ²³ Google’s example includes a widget with Google Business reviews embedded on the business’s own site. ²³

Even correct markup does not guarantee a place in the results, Google warns. ²⁴ Mark up the site to tell the machine what the restaurant is. A restaurant, with this cuisine, this menu, and these hours. Anyone who promises stars or a menu in the results owes you the Google page that describes it. One of the nine results for “seo para restaurante” puts Restaurant markup on its checklist to get rich results. ³

Delivery apps and reservation platforms: who else talks about you

Open a delivery app and search for your restaurant. Then open a reservation platform and a city guide. In all three, someone who is not you wrote the restaurant’s name, address, cuisine, and hours.

In my book, this mechanism has a name. Independent sources state the same facts about the same thing, until the system can pull everything into a single record. This is called identity corroboration. ²⁵ The book separates this work from what the restaurant claims about its own food. What matters here is what the app confirms: that the restaurant exists, where it is, and what it serves.

The two readings of “restaurante perto de mim” show where these sources appear. In the Semrush snapshot for Brazil, four of the top ten organic addresses were Tripadvisor pages. One was a reservation platform’s page, and three were travel or deals guides. ¹ On the live screen, below the map, six of the nine results were guides, Instagram profiles, and news sites writing about restaurants. Three were restaurant websites. ¹

The profile itself shows these sources. Ordering links from third-party providers come in on their own, when the provider states an authorized relationship with the restaurant. ¹³ The guidelines go further. Google can detect a business’s category from its website and from mentions across the web. ⁷ In my reading, the restaurant’s page on a delivery app or a reservation platform is among those mentions.

I have no data on how many customers an app takes from a restaurant. Nor on how many it brings. So I claim nothing about it. What I can claim is mechanical. Each of those pages writes the restaurant’s name, address, and cuisine in a place the owner does not fully control.

One rule in the guidelines shows how much the website weighs in this. A delivery-only brand, working out of a virtual kitchen, is allowed with distinct branded packaging and a distinct website. ⁷ It also hides its address and adds its service areas. ⁷

Each discrepancy among these pages is more work for whoever reconciles the records. ²⁵ The old name on the app, the first location’s address on the platform, and the wrong cuisine in the guide all weigh the same. Which mention counts and which only seems to count is in the piece on corroboration.

Reviews: the line the policy draws

Picture the corner table when the check comes. The server offers a free dessert to anyone who shows a five-star review on their phone. The customer leaves happy, the rating goes up, and everyone thinks they won. In Google’s policy, this is called an incentivized review. ¹⁴

The AI Overview at the top of “seo para restaurante” advises “Incentive avaliações.” ³ The Portuguese verb there, incentivar, means both to encourage and to offer an incentive. Google’s policy splits the two. Asking is allowed. Paying, in any currency, is banned.

The Maps content policy is direct. ¹⁴ A merchant can’t offer payment, discounts, or free goods or services in exchange for a review. The same goes for changing or removing a negative review. ¹⁴ Merchants can’t discourage negative reviews or selectively solicit positive ones. ¹⁴ They can’t require or pressure customers to review on the premises, or ask for specific content. And they can’t have staff solicit a certain number of reviews. ¹⁴

Reviews paid for, directly or in kind, count as fake engagement in the same policy. So does content posted from multiple accounts by one person. ¹⁴ And a review with a conflict of interest falls under rating manipulation. The list includes current or former employment, competitors, and family ties. ¹⁴

At a restaurant, the temptation takes familiar shapes. The QR code on the check asking for five stars. The dessert in exchange for a screenshot. The review quota per server, written on the kitchen whiteboard. All three run into the policy. ¹⁴

Also notice a piece of advice that shows up in two of the nine results: ask satisfied customers for reviews. ³ In my reading, asking only the happy ones comes close to what the policy calls selectively soliciting positive reviews. Ask everyone.

What the policy allows fits in one line. Ask customers to share their genuine experience, with no incentive and no attempt to influence the rating. ¹⁴ The reviews help page gives the tool: a Google link or a QR code for the customer to leave a review. ¹⁷ It adds a sentence that suits a restaurant well. A mix of positive and negative feedback often feels more trustworthy. ¹⁷

The restaurant sheet

Set aside an afternoon, a phone, and a sheet with five columns. Site, profile, delivery app, reservation platform, and a city guide. It is the book’s five-tab exercise, with the restaurant in the middle. ²⁵

In each column, copy the restaurant’s name, address, type of food, and hours, exactly as they are written. Mark every difference, without fixing anything yet. ²⁵
Open the profile and check that the main hours are the dining room hours. Delivery and takeout belong under More hours. ⁷ ⁹
Open the menu link on the profile. Write down whether it leads to a page on the site, a PDF, or the delivery app. ⁷
Open the site’s menu on your phone and try to select a dish. If the text won’t select, the menu is probably an image.
On the profile’s menu tab, count the sources and look at the dates. ¹⁰
Read what is printed on the QR code on the check, and ask what staff say when they ask for reviews. Compare it with the list of what the policy bans. ¹⁴

Every mark on the sheet is work that comes before any new post. The rest of the site, from indexing to speed, follows the order of the technical SEO section.

From now on, when the menu changes, you will ask how many places it lives in. On the site, on the profile, on the app, in a customer’s photo. When the hours change for a holiday, you will open the five columns before posting on Instagram. And when someone suggests a freebie in exchange for reviews, the answer is already in the policy.

Start today with the first line of the sheet: the restaurant’s name, written in five places.

Frequently asked questions

PDF is on the list of formats Google indexes. ¹⁸ The problem is the separate file, which can stay online after it goes out of date. With the menu as text on the site, Google can also transcribe the items to the profile. ¹⁰

Can I give a discount to customers who review the restaurant on Google?

No. The policy bans offering payment, discounts, or free goods or services in exchange for reviews. ¹⁴ Asking customers to share their genuine experience is allowed, with a Google link or QR code. ¹⁴ ¹⁷

Can I remove a bad photo a customer posted on my profile?

Not directly. The help says the owner can’t stop customers from posting photo updates. The owner can report a photo that violates the policies. ¹⁵ An outdated menu photo can be flagged and replaced with a correct one. ¹⁰

Does restaurant schema markup get me stars on Google?

Not through the markup. An average rating marked up in the code is only recommended for sites that collect reviews of other businesses. ²¹ Reviews of the restaurant on its own site are not eligible for stars, even through Google’s widget. ²³ And no markup guarantees a place in the results. ²⁴

Notes and sources

SEO Genome survey on September 14, 2026, in two readings of the Portuguese query “restaurante perto de mim” (restaurant near me), on Google in Brazil, where we are based. On the live Google Brazil page (https://www.google.com.br/search?q=restaurante+perto+de+mim&hl=pt-BR&gl=br&pws=0, in a browser signed in to a Google account, with the approximate location Google assigned in Asa Norte, a district of Brasília, and the request for an exact location declined): the filters “Abertos agora” (Open now), “Bem avaliados” (Top rated), “Culinária” (Cuisine), and “Preço” (Price); a “Locais” (Places) block with three restaurants, each with a rating, number of reviews, price range, type of food, address, open or closed status, and a customer quote; and nine organic results: two from Tripadvisor, two Instagram profiles, a guide from QuintoAndar, a list from Metrópoles, and three restaurant websites. In Semrush, Brazil database, organic results report for the same query, pulled the same day: four of the top ten addresses are Tripadvisor pages; one is the reservation widget of Tagme (reservation-widget.tagme.com.br); three are travel or deals guides (the restaurant tips page of iGuest, a lodging company in Foz do Iguaçu; Laçador de Ofertas; and the blog Café Viagem); the other two are an online store’s page (FastGet) and a restaurant’s link page. The Semrush snapshot does not state the location where it was collected. No restaurant is named in the body. Accessed September 14, 2026.
Daniel Sócrates, SEO de Entidade (published in Portuguese), 2026, chapter 1, “O clique deixou de ser a moeda” (The click is no longer the currency), section “A catraca e a vitrine” (The Door Counter and the Storefront Window): “O restaurante cujo horário e avaliações aparecem no mapa antes de qualquer clique.” (The restaurant whose hours and reviews show up on the map before any click.)
SEO Genome survey of the Google Brazil results page for “seo para restaurante” (SEO for restaurants) (https://www.google.com.br/search?q=seo+para+restaurante&hl=pt-BR&gl=br&pws=0, in a browser signed in to a Google account), on September 14, 2026. Semrush, Brazil and Brazil mobile databases, had no results snapshot for “seo para restaurante” or “seo para restaurantes” that day. The page showed an AI Overview at the top, with the item “Incentive avaliações” (Encourage reviews), three ads, related questions, two ads at the bottom, and nine organic results, in order: Tripadvisor, https://www.tripadvisor.com/business/pt-br/insights/seo-tips-for-restaurants; Saipos, https://saipos.com/cardapio-digital/marketing/seo-para-restaurantes; Loja Brazil, https://www.lojabrazil.com.br/blog/ideias-de-seo-para-restaurantes/; Unilever Food Solutions, https://www.unileverfoodsolutions.com.br/dicas-e-servicos/seu-negocio/seo-local.html; GulaMia, https://gulamia.com.br/seo-para-restaurantes/; Goomer, https://goomer.com.br/blog/seo-para-restaurantes; Clientela, https://clientela.app/blog/seo-local-para-restaurantes; DammG, https://academy.dammg.com.br/seo-para-restaurante/; and WAbiz, https://wabiz.com.br/blog/10-estrategias-de-seo-para-restaurantes/. Accessed September 14, 2026, for all nine. None cites the Google Maps user-generated content policy or the transcription of the site’s menu to the profile. Clientela is the only one that covers buying reviews, in the FAQ entry “Comprar avaliações ajuda?” (Does buying reviews help?), marked up in the page’s structured data, with a negative answer and a mention of “risco de punição” (risk of penalty), without citing the policy. Tripadvisor recommends putting the menu text on the page instead of uploading a PDF or an image. GulaMia lists Restaurant markup “para gerar resultados enriquecidos no Google” (to generate rich results on Google). Loja Brazil and Unilever Food Solutions advise asking satisfied customers for reviews.
Semrush, Brazil database (br), keyword report, query of September 14, 2026. Monthly volume: “seo para restaurante” (SEO for restaurant) 20; “seo para restaurantes” (SEO for restaurants) 40; “restaurante perto de mim” (restaurant near me) 301,000; “pizzaria perto de mim” (pizzeria near me) 110,000; “restaurante aberto agora” (restaurant open now) 33,100; “cardápio” (menu) 14,800; “reservar restaurante” (book a restaurant) 480; “delivery perto de mim” (delivery near me) 3,600; “restaurante com espaço kids perto de mim” (restaurant with a kids’ area near me) 2,400; “restaurante pet friendly” (pet-friendly restaurant) 2,900. Tool volume is a third-party estimate.
Google Business Profile Help, “Tips to improve your local ranking on Google” (“Dicas para melhorar sua classificação local no Google” in the Portuguese version), https://support.google.com/business/answer/7091. Accessed September 14, 2026, in the English and Portuguese versions. Passages from the English version: “When a customer searches for a business or place near their location, they’ll find local results on Google Maps and Search”; “a customer might find local places near them if they search for ‘Italian restaurant’ on their phone”; “Local results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity”, with “Prominence” described as the third factor in the same section; and “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google”.
Google Business Profile Help, “Understand how Google sources & uses info in Business Profiles & local search results,” https://support.google.com/business/answer/2721884. Accessed September 14, 2026, in the English and Portuguese versions. Passages from the English version: “if customers search for a restaurant you manage, they can find information you’ve added, such as when you’re open and where you’re located. They also might get information you haven’t added, such as a link to your menu or photos customers have uploaded of meals they’ve enjoyed”; and “your business might appear in local search results for people who search for ‘salons near me’ or ‘salons open now’ because you’ve provided information that includes your address and hours”.
Google Business Profile Help, “Guidelines for representing your business on Google” (“Diretrizes para representar sua empresa no Google” in the Portuguese version), https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177. Accessed September 14, 2026, in the English and Portuguese versions. Passages from the English version: “Restaurants: Use the hours when diners can sit down and dine in your restaurant. Otherwise, use takeout hours. If neither of those is possible, use drive-through hours, or, as a last resort, delivery hours”; “Select categories that complete the statement: ‘This business IS a’ rather than ‘this business HAS a’”; “Google can also detect category information from your website and from mentions about your business throughout the web”; “Sample menus that only list ‘popular items’ (or similar excerpts) should not be submitted”; “Menu URLs can’t be direct links to third-party ordering or delivery services”; “Delivery-only brands (i.e. those operating out of virtual kitchens) are permitted if they have distinct branded packaging and a distinct website”; and “Delivery-only brands must add their service areas and hide the address on their business profile”.
Google Business Profile Help, “Get started with a Business Profile for your restaurant” (“Criar um Perfil da Empresa para seu restaurante” in the Portuguese version), https://support.google.com/business/answer/14189260. Accessed September 14, 2026, in the English and Portuguese versions. The guide covers business hours and More hours, Order with Google, Reserve with Google, attributes, photos, the menu editor, the menu URL and menu photos, replies to reviews, and metrics for menus and bookings. The Portuguese version warns that it may include AI-translated content.
Google Business Profile Help, “How to set More hours” (“Como definir mais horários de funcionamento” in the Portuguese version), https://support.google.com/business/answer/9876800. Accessed September 14, 2026, in the English and Portuguese versions. Passages from the English version: “You can select the hours for specific services your business offers such as delivery, takeout, drive through, and pickup” and “Generally, you should set More hours as a subset of your primary hours”, with the example of a restaurant with happy hours and takeout.
Google Business Profile Help, “About the menu editor” (“Sobre o Editor de cardápios” in the Portuguese version), https://support.google.com/business/answer/9455840. Accessed September 14, 2026, in the English and Portuguese versions. Passages from the English version: “you may find an option to add menu items, along with their descriptions and prices”, grouped into sections; “You can also upload your own menu photo or a PDF that contains your menu”; “If you see a menu photo uploaded by a customer that’s obsolete or inaccurate, flag it for removal and upload a new, accurate menu photo yourself”; “Add or edit your menu URL”; “When Google finds multiple menu sources for your business, you’ll find the menu options and when it was last updated in the Menu tab”; “To review the menu source before you add the suggested items, under ‘Add these menu items?’ click the name of the third-party provider”; and, in the section “Menu transcription”, “Google may transcribe menu data from your business website so that it appears accurately on your Business Profile”, with the options to edit or delete an item and to opt out of menu transcription.
Google Business Profile Help, “Manage your business attributes” (“Gerenciar os atributos da sua empresa” in the Portuguese version), https://support.google.com/business/answer/9049526. Accessed September 14, 2026, in the English and Portuguese versions. Passages from the English version: “you can share whether your business offers outdoor seats or Wi-Fi”; “Wheelchair-accessible entrance” among the accessibility attributes; “If you add certain attributes, your business might show up in searches for places with those attributes”; “there are attributes that may be populated based on inputs from customers who visit your business”; and “Some attributes can only be changed in certain locations, countries, or business categories”. The page does not list attributes for a kids’ area or for pets, and the body does not claim they exist.
Google Business Profile Help, “Manage your local business links” (“Links de empresas locais” in the Portuguese version), https://support.google.com/business/answer/6218037. Accessed September 14, 2026, in the English and Portuguese versions. Passages from the English version: a single link to “Check a menu”; “You can also add up to 10 links per category”, to book an appointment, make a reservation, place a food order, and place a shopping order; and “These links are provided and updated by third-party partners or through automated data from Google”.
Google Business Profile Help, “Manage online ordering options” (“Gerenciar opções de entrega on-line” in the Portuguese version), https://support.google.com/business/answer/10842217. Accessed September 14, 2026, in the English and Portuguese versions. Passages from the English version: “Third-party providers who state they have authorized relationships with your business are automatically listed on your profile”; “Set a preferred online order provider”; and “providers must remove third-party links from a profile within 5 business days”.
Google Maps User Generated Content Policy, “Prohibited & restricted content” (“Conteúdo proibido e restrito” in the Portuguese version), https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/7400114, and the entry “Incentivized or Biased Reviews” in the same policy’s glossary, https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/16597558 (no Portuguese version). Accessed September 14, 2026, in the English and Portuguese versions. Passages from the English version, under “Fake Engagement”: “Reviews or ratings that have been paid for, directly or in kind” and “Content that has been posted from multiple accounts by or at the request of one person”; under “Rating Manipulation”: “Rating Manipulation includes Incentivized or Biased Reviews”, and a conflict of interest that “may include current or former employment” and other affiliations “(such as industry competitors, familial relationships, etc.)”; and, among what merchants may not do, offer incentives “such as payment, discounts, free goods and/or services” “in exchange for posting any review or revision or removal of a negative review”; “Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers”; “merchants should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises, nor should they request that specific content be included”; and “Merchants requesting that staff solicit a certain number of reviews”. Allowed: “Solicit or encourage the posting of content that does represent a genuine experience, without offering incentives to do so or attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review”. The glossary entry describes incentivized reviews as those “influenced by a payment, discount, free goods or services, or any other benefit offered to the reviewer”.
Google Business Profile Help, “About photo updates from customers,” https://support.google.com/business/answer/9867764, and “Report inappropriate photos or videos on your Business Profile,” https://support.google.com/business/answer/6130451. Accessed September 14, 2026, in the English and Portuguese versions. Passages from the English version: “Photo updates from customers can highlight things like changes to your business hours, seasonal menus, and new products or services”; “You can’t stop customers from posting photo updates, but you can report inappropriate photos”; and “The review process can take several business days”.
Google Business Profile Help, “Manage your restaurant’s popular dish names,” https://support.google.com/business/answer/9322475. Accessed September 14, 2026, in the English and Portuguese versions. Passage from the English version: “Both you and your customers can add photos and names of dishes. However, dish names added by you will get precedence over dish names added by customers.”
Google Business Profile Help, “Tips to get more reviews” (“Dicas para receber mais avaliações” in the Portuguese version), https://support.google.com/business/answer/3474122. Accessed September 14, 2026, in the English and Portuguese versions. Passages from the English version: incentives in exchange for reviews are “considered fake & misleading content and is strictly prohibited”; “you can ask customers to visit a Google link or scan a QR code”; “A mix of positive and negative feedback often feels more trustworthy”; and “If you believe that a review violates Google’s content policies, you can flag it”.
Google Search Central, “File types indexable by Google,” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/indexable-file-types, page last updated February 3, 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. The list includes “Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf)” among the text formats Google can index.
Google Search Central, “Image SEO best practices,” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/google-images, page last updated March 2, 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. Passages: “Google uses alt text along with computer vision algorithms and the contents of the page to understand the subject matter of the image” and “Google extracts information about the subject matter of the image from the content of the page, including captions and image titles”. The page does not address reading text written inside an image; the remark about dishes and prices is the author’s.
Schema.org, “Restaurant,” https://schema.org/Restaurant; “FoodEstablishment,” https://schema.org/FoodEstablishment; “servesCuisine,” https://schema.org/servesCuisine; “acceptsReservations,” https://schema.org/acceptsReservations; “hasMenu,” https://schema.org/hasMenu; and “Menu,” https://schema.org/Menu. Accessed September 14, 2026, version 30.0 of the vocabulary. Passages: the hierarchy Thing > Organization > LocalBusiness > FoodEstablishment > Restaurant; servesCuisine, “The cuisine of the restaurant”; acceptsReservations, “Indicates whether a FoodEstablishment accepts reservations. Values can be Boolean, an URL at which reservations can be made or (for backwards compatibility) the strings Yes or No”; hasMenu, “Either the actual menu as a structured representation, as text, or a URL of the menu”, with the note “Supersedes menu”; and Menu, “A structured representation of food or drink items available from a FoodEstablishment”. Schema.org is a public markup vocabulary, and this piece does not claim that Google uses all of these fields.
Google Search Central, “Local business (LocalBusiness) structured data,” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/local-business, page last updated September 8, 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. Passages: “Use the most specific LocalBusiness sub-type possible; for example, Restaurant”; among the supported properties, “menu” (“For food establishments, the fully-qualified URL of the menu”), “openingHoursSpecification”, “priceRange”, and “servesCuisine”, with no acceptsReservations on the list; “The Restaurant carousel is limited to a small set of restaurant providers”; “If you want to help users to make a reservation or place an order directly in Search results, you can use the Maps Booking API”; and, for aggregateRating and review, “This property is only recommended for sites that capture reviews about other local businesses”.
Google Search Central, “Structured data markup that Google Search supports,” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/search-gallery, page last updated June 15, 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. The carousel “must be combined with one of the following features: Recipe, Course list, Restaurant, Movie”. The list also includes Local business and Review snippet, and no result of its own for menus.
Google Search Central, “Review snippet (Review, AggregateRating) structured data,” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/review-snippet, page last updated September 8, 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. Passage: “If the entity that’s being reviewed controls the reviews about itself, their pages that use LocalBusiness or any other type of Organization structured data are ineligible for star review feature. For example, a review about entity A is placed on the website of entity A, either directly in their structured data or through an embedded third-party widget (for example, Google Business reviews or Facebook reviews widget).”
Google Search Central, “General structured data guidelines,” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/sd-policies, page last updated July 10, 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. Passage: “Google does not guarantee that your structured data will show up in search results, even if your page is marked up correctly according to the Rich Results Test.”
Daniel Sócrates, SEO de Entidade (published in Portuguese), 2026, chapter 4, “O cartório do Google: como strings viram things” (The Google Registry: How Strings Become Things). This is the source of the definition “Fontes independentes afirmando os mesmos fatos sobre a mesma coisa, até que o sistema consiga juntar tudo num registro único. Isso se chama corroboração de identidade.” (Independent sources stating the same facts about the same thing, until the system can pull everything into a single record. This is called identity corroboration.); of the boundary between who the company is and what it claims about its subject; of the sentence “Cada divergência dessas é uma unidade a mais de trabalho para quem reconcilia” (Each of these discrepancies is one more unit of work for whoever reconciles); and of the exercise “Cinco abas, dez minutos” (Five tabs, ten minutes), adapted here for the restaurant, with the hours in place of the description.

SEO for Restaurants: The Map, the Menu, and What Others Write About You