Google Replaced the LSA Badges. Here's What to Fix.

Three badges became one. Google Guaranteed, Google Screened and License Verified have been consolidated into a single Google Verified badge, and the money-back guarantee that came with Google Guaranteed has been discontinued. If your website, trucks or brochures still say "Google Guaranteed," they're now referencing something that doesn't exist.

Existing advertisers didn't have to do anything to get the new badge. But most have marketing materials that are now wrong, and nobody sends you an email about that.

What actually changed

Before	Now
Google Guaranteed (home services)	Google Verified
Google Screened (legal, financial, real estate)	Google Verified
License Verified	Google Verified
Money-back guarantee up to a coverage cap	Discontinued

Google's stated reasoning was simplification — one badge for all advertisers instead of three that consumers had to learn the difference between. In its own words, it's "simplifying our advertiser badging by launching a single badge for all advertisers."

On the money-back guarantee: reimbursement requests were accepted for services booked before December 7, 2025, within 30 days of service completion. That window is closed.

The July 2026 rename

Separately, on July 6, 2026, Google renamed "Local Services platform policies" to "Local Services Ads requirements."

This one is mostly cosmetic — terminology cleanup and removal of rules that no longer applied, with no new restrictions on current advertisers. It's worth knowing about mainly because the word "requirements" reads differently from "policies," and because if you're searching for the old document name you won't find it.

The underlying obligations are unchanged:

Background checks on owners and relevant field staff
Valid licensing and insurance for your region
An active, verified Google Business Profile
Annual renewal of licenses and insurance — miss it and the badge is revoked automatically
Three to four weeks for new applicants to get through verification

What to actually do this week

1. Search your own website for "Google Guaranteed." Then "Google Screened." Then "License Verified." Fix every instance. This takes ten minutes and most businesses haven't done it.

2. Check your ad copy and extensions. Old badge language in Google Ads copy is now inaccurate.

3. Check the physical stuff. Truck wraps, yard signs, business cards, brochures. Nobody remembers these, and they're the ones customers actually look at.

4. Diarise your license and insurance renewal dates. Automatic badge revocation for lapsed documentation is the most common way businesses lose LSA visibility, and it's entirely preventable. Put it in the calendar with a 60-day warning.

5. If you haven't started verification, start now. Three to four weeks is the stated timeline and it's not fast. Whatever else you're deciding about paid media, the clock on this one runs independently.

Does this change whether LSA is worth running?

Not really.

The money-back guarantee was a consumer trust signal, and losing it removes a small amount of differentiation from the badge — but the badge was never the reason LSA works. LSA works because you pay per lead rather than per click, you appear above every other result, and cost per lead is usually the lowest available in eligible trades.

Ranking still comes down to responsiveness and review rating, both of which are within your control and neither of which changed.

If your trade is eligible, it's still the first channel we'd recommend. The full guide covers how it works, and how it compares to Google Ads covers when to run both.

Sources

Written by Jared DeValk, founder of Nashville Digital. Published September 8, 2026.