Google Guaranteed vs Google Screened: Now Google Verified

Google ended Google Guaranteed and Google Screened on October 20, 2025, folding both into one Google Verified badge with no money-back guarantee, according to its help page as archived that month. A year on, the retired badge still shows up more than its replacement on contractor websites and in AI answers, and Google Guaranteed art can imply refund protection that no longer covers new bookings. Google Screened never included a refund.

Last verified: November 1, 2026.

On November 1, 2026, we read 971 US contractor homepages, and 9 showed Google Guaranteed as the business's own credential, while at most 1 showed anything like the Google Verified badge. In AI answers from October 24 to 31, 3 of 6,660 in US cities credited a business with the old badge, and none of 11,097 across the US and Canada named the new one.

If the old art is still on your trucks or quote templates, take it down this week and write out in plain text the checks your Local Services Ads profile lists.

Google Guaranteed vs Google Screened: what each badge promised

Google Guaranteed was the badge with money behind it. If a customer who booked through Local Services Ads was unhappy with the work, Google could repay up to the amount paid for the initial service, with a lifetime limit per customer of $2,000 in the US and $2,000 CAD in Canada. It never covered "add-on or future projects, damages to property, dissatisfaction with price or provider responsiveness, or cancellations."

Google Screened meant the business had passed Google's checks, with no refund attached. It was the professional-services badge, though it reached into home services: Google's archived Google Screened page, in a copy from August 5, 2025, lists law, financial planning, real estate and child care, plus eligible home services, auto care, and beauty and wellness providers, in the US and UK only.

Google Verified replaced both on October 20, 2025

Search Engine Roundtable reported Google's email to advertisers on August 21, 2025, and the help page set the switch date in a copy archived on October 6, 2025. A third label, License Verified by Google, folded in too. Google's About Google Verified badge page says advertisers who'd passed verification "will automatically earn the new Google Verified badge," which shows on the Local Services Ads profile next to the verifications the business passed. Google adds, "Local Services Ads ranking won't be affected by this change."

If a customer asks about the old guarantee, the date that matters is December 7, 2025. Google takes claims only for services booked through Local Services Ads before then, filed "within 30 days of the initial service completion date," so for most jobs the window has closed. Its Local Services terms also say "These labels are not warranties" and put the provider, not Google, on the hook for customer claims, so any promise now has to come from you.

How to get Google Verified now

It starts with a public, verified Google Business Profile. Business documents come next: in select US verticals Google checks registration against the business's D-U-N-S number, and its screening process page accepts a Secretary of State business registration, an IRS EIN or a Department of Revenue registration from a company without one. A new D-U-N-S application "can take up to 30 days," so if you lack a number, use an alternative rather than wait.

License and insurance documents follow where Google asks for them, then background checks, which are free. Google's US requirements page puts screening at 3 to 4 weeks on average after you submit documents, and the badge appears on the profile once every requirement is met.

What Google checks, by trade

Google's US requirements page gives 11 common home-service trades one base list of checks, with extras for some.

• The base list: business and owner background checks, business registration with a check on the business representative, general liability insurance, and state business and owner licenses "Where applicable by local law." Google marks most of these "(Select users only)," so not every business gets every check.
• HVAC, plumbing and electrical are urgent categories, which adds background checks on the technicians who go into the home.
• Garage door and locksmith are urgent too and add "Google's Advanced Verification screening process." Their state business license carries no "(Select users only)" note, so plan on that check wherever local law requires one.
• Water damage adds IICRC certification for select users, and Google warns some states may require extra licenses for mold work.
• Roofing, pest control, lawn care, house cleaning and appliance repair carry the base checks only.

The badge is one part of a strong ad profile. Google's ad rankings page weighs your bid, how likely you are to get a lead and profile quality, which counts "the verification checks you have completed" alongside rating, reviews and response time. If several of your locations serve the same area, only the highest-ranking ad shows.

You pay for leads, not the badge, and since October 1 Google charges some missed Local Services Ads calls as leads.

What the move into Google Ads changes

Local Services Ads started moving into Google Ads in August 2026 with select US home and storefront advertisers, including HVAC, plumbing, electrical and roofing, so check whether your account already moved. The late-2026 phase covers "service-area businesses without physical storefronts," which takes in many home-service companies.

Google emails the account admin 14 days before a move, so make sure that inbox belongs to someone who'll act on it. Old performance reports don't carry over, so save each unmoved branch's reports first; our Local Services Ads to Performance Max migration guide lists what to export.

Google's transition page says your verified status and badge "will transfer to Google Ads automatically" and that "Insurance and license reverification are no longer required." Keep current license and insurance details on your own pages too, so customers can inspect the underlying credentials.

After migration, only "Eligible businesses in select verticals" display the badge. "BBB callouts are no longer supported," and Google asks for "at least 6 other structured callouts" instead. Rebranding acquired branches? A significant change to a migrated branch's name, storefront address or primary category triggers a review "which typically takes 24 to 48 hours," and the campaign may pause until it clears.

The retired badge is still out there

On the homepages, the old badge mostly sat in images: seven of the sites that claimed it used badge images or image labels, one a text label in a logo bar and one a line of copy in the page code. Only one used the words in visible page text, and no homepage mentioned Google Screened.

Searching the visible page won't find a badge image, so right-click the page in Chrome, choose to view the page source and search that for "guarantee," which catches file names and alt text too. We read homepages only, so check your location and service pages the same way.

In Canadian cities, 7 of 4,437 AI answers also credited a business with Google Guaranteed. All 10 treated the badge as a current credential of a named business ("Google Guaranteed status," "Google-guaranteed"), and none said Google had retired it. No answer mentioned Google Screened or Local Services Ads.

If an answer still calls your business Google Guaranteed, start with your own site and Business Profile, since those are the pages you control, then run Cheers' free AI visibility check to see how the engines describe you.

Credentials in plain words come up far more often. In the same window, 435 US answers used BBB accreditation or A+ BBB rating language, and over October, licensed, insured or bonded came up in 12.6% to 32.4% of US answers depending on the engine. That's why your own checks belong in text, where customers and engines can read them.

Paid ads and organic AI recommendations give customers two ways to find the business. Google's page on ads in AI-powered experiences says "Buying ads doesn't influence organic AI answers," and it doesn't list Local Services Ads or pay-per-lead campaigns among the formats that appear inside AI answers.

Keep Local Services Ads in the acquisition mix when it produces booked work. Google's text and Shopping ads can also appear inside AI Mode answers; the AI Mode ads checklist covers eligibility and branch routing.

What to change this month

Give each line one owner; in a single shop, most of it lands on one desk.

• Marketing, this week: search the website, quote and invoice templates and email signatures for "Google Guaranteed" and "Google Screened," page source included, then walk the trucks and yard signs and take the art down. Don't swap in a Google Verified image or a bare "Google Verified" line: Google hasn't published rules for showing the badge outside its own ads, and its trademark guidelines say "Use only Google-approved artwork when using Google's logos." Where a branch's LSA profile shows the badge, write the checks out instead, for example "business registration, license and insurance checked by Google for Local Services Ads," and link to the profile.
• Marketing: if you stand behind your work, write the warranty as your own, so customers can tell who's making the promise.
• Paid media: open each branch's LSA profile, or its Google Ads campaign after migration, and confirm the badge and the verifications Google calls out. If the badge is missing, the account's verification status says whether the branch is unverified, still in screening or in a category where Google doesn't show it after migration. For unmoved service-area branches, put the migration on the calendar and pick structured callouts to replace any BBB callout.
• Operations: put the license number, insurance and background-check policy in plain text on every location page, and in the Business Profile description where it fits, never in the business name. Our guide to publishing license and insurance proof shows a format for a multi-state brand.
• Leadership: keep LSA and AI visibility as separate budget lines, judged by booked jobs where you can trace them, with charged leads on the ad side and mention rate in tracked AI answers as a visibility indicator alongside the business outcomes.
• Deal team: in acquisition diligence, count the target's branches still advertising Google Guaranteed against those whose LSA profiles show Google Verified. The gap shows how current its brand assets are; check verification status separately.

Cheers is the done-for-you local visibility partner for established home-service companies and PE-backed portfolios. Our team manages your Google Business Profiles, website, reviews, directory listings, local pages and AI search visibility, so you get found on Google and Maps and recommended by AI.

A drop in enquiries needs a separate diagnosis; the paid-lead troubleshooting guide works through demand, campaign and call-handling checks.

Method

AI answers. The Cheers Market Baseline is our own research panel: every week it asks ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Gemini the same 32 home-service questions in 100 metro areas, 60 in the US and 40 in Canada. Perplexity isn't in this edition. This count uses answers scheduled October 24 to 31, 2026, the last 8 days of October. Thirty-two questions in 100 cities makes 3,200 question-and-city pairs, and the 8 days caught 499 of them twice, for 3,699 answers per engine and 11,097 in all (6,660 in US cities, 4,437 in Canadian cities).

We searched the answer text, ignoring case, for "Google Guaranteed" with or without a hyphen, "Google Screened," "Google Verified" and "Local Services Ads" or "LSA," then read all 10 hits by hand; no business they named appears here. Gemini wrote 8 of the 10, Google AI Mode 2 and ChatGPT none. Seven came from HVAC questions, two from plumbing and one from electrical.

Ten answers in 8 days is a small count, and it doesn't make a trend. We counted mentions; we didn't test whether verified businesses get recommended more often. The count covers answer text only, so it can't see a sponsored unit Google places beside an AI answer or a badge icon inside AI Mode, and we didn't measure where the engines got the phrase. The BBB count covers accreditation and A+ BBB rating language, general advice included.

Homepages. The listings come from Cheers' weekly scans of Google's local map results in markets where 10 Cheers home-service customers operate, so they aren't a national random sample. We used the same 1,096 US home-service contractor websites as our agent-readiness census, with Cheers customers, directories, platforms and other non-contractor sites removed, and fetched each homepage once on November 1, 2026, between 6:01 and 6:04 a.m. PT; 971 were readable, though readable counts move by a few between fetches, and the census read 976.

Ten homepages referenced Google Guaranteed; the one we didn't count as a credential was an image file named for how to become Google Guaranteed. We read the raw HTML of the homepage only and checked every match by hand; we name no site. Read 9 of 971 as a floor for this set of sites, not a rate for every contractor website.

Licensed, insured or bonded. US answers from October 2 to 31, 2026, 8,209 to 8,217 per engine, spanning ChatGPT's October 9 answer-format change. They're the same figures as in our trust-signals study, and the matches include general advice such as "make sure they're licensed."

Sources

• The Google Guarantee (archived copy), Google Local Services Help, archived October 6, 2025. The October 20, 2025 switch date and the old refund terms.
• About Google Screened (archived copy), Google Local Services Help, archived August 5, 2025. Which categories carried Google Screened.
• Google To Replace Local Service Ads Badges With One Verified Badge, Search Engine Roundtable, August 21, 2025. The report of Google's email to advertisers.
• About Google Verified badge, Google Local Services Help, undated. Automatic badge, ranking unchanged, the December 7, 2025 cutoff.
• Local Services Terms of Service, United States, Google, undated. Labels aren't warranties; providers own customer claims.
• Understand the screening and verification process, Google Local Services Help, undated. D-U-N-S alternatives and free background checks.
• Business screening and verification requirements, United States, Google Local Services Help, undated. Screening time and the checks by trade.
• About ad rankings, Google Local Services Help, undated. What profile quality counts.
• Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals, Google Ads Help, undated. Migration phases, badge transfer and callout rules.
• About ads in AI-powered experiences in Google Search, Google Ads Help, undated. Ads don't influence organic AI answers.
• Trademark guidelines for proper usage, Google Partner Marketing Hub, undated. Google-approved artwork only.

Sources read November 1, 2026.

Dylan Allen-Arnegård is the CEO & Co-Founder of Cheers, the done-for-you local visibility partner for established home-service companies and PE-backed portfolios.