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In plain English
business.site was not a product you bought. It was the ending of the web address Google gave to a free, basic website that a business could make from its Google Business Profile. The site was powered by the information already on the profile, so it took minutes to set up and needed no design work and no hosting. An address looked like yourbusiness.business.site.
Google switched those websites off in March 2024. For a few months an old address sent visitors on to the business’s Google profile. That stopped on 10 June 2024, and since then a business.site address shows a “page not found” error. Search Engine Journal’s report of Google’s notice gives the dates and the website builders Google suggested instead.
The closure affected the websites only. A Google Business Profile, the listing that appears on Google Maps and in search with your reviews, photos and opening hours, carries on as before. So the question for an owner is not how to get listed again. It is where the website link on that listing should go now.
Why it matters for a Jersey business
Some small businesses used a business.site page as their only website, because it was free and looked after itself. If yours did, three things follow.
First, every copy of the old address is now a dead end. Someone who taps it from a social page, an old directory listing or a card in a shop window lands on an error, and may wonder whether the business is still trading.
Second, your Business Profile needs a website address of your own. Google’s guidelines for representing your business ask that the website on a profile is the business’s own, not a link that forwards people somewhere else.
Third, the episode is a reminder about ownership. A free address that belongs to someone else can be withdrawn. A domain name registered in your own name stays with you whoever builds or hosts the site.
A Jersey example
Imagine a mobile dog groomer in St Clement who set up a business.site page in 2021 and had the address painted on her van. This is an illustration, not a real customer. In 2026 the van still shows the old address, her social page still links to it, and anyone who types it in sees an error page. Her Google profile is fine: the reviews and the phone number are all still there. What she is missing is somewhere of her own to send people. A single page on a .je domain she registers herself would do everything the old page did, and the address on the next van would be hers to keep.
What to do
- Check the website field on your Google Business Profile and remove any business.site address.
- Decide what replaces it. Our guide to business.site alternatives compares Google Sites, a website builder and a small built website.
- Register a domain in your own name before you build anything.
- Replace the old address everywhere it appears. Our checklist for finding old business.site links covers the places people forget.
- Test the new site on a phone, starting from the link on your Google profile.
Our business.site closure page has a short video that walks through these steps.
Common myths
“Google closed my business listing.” It did not. Only the free websites closed. Business Profiles on Google Maps and in search were not affected.
“business.site and Google Sites are the same thing.” They are separate. Google Sites is a website builder that Google still runs at sites.google.com, and it can use your own domain. A website made there has not closed.
“The old address will start working again.” Nothing suggests it will. The websites were switched off in 2024, and the addresses have shown an error since June of that year.
“I need a big website to replace it.” You do not. A business.site page was a single basic page. One well-organised page that says what you do, where you work and how to get in touch covers the same ground, and you can add to it later.
Our take
business.site did a useful job for businesses that needed something simple, and its closure left them with a dead link. The fix is small. What matters most is that the replacement sits on an address you own, so the next change of service or supplier does not take your website with it. If you would like it built for you, a one-page website is where most replacements start, and our local SEO guide explains how a profile and a website work together.
Related terms
Learn more
Common questions
- Is business.site the same as Google Sites?
- No. Google Sites, at sites.google.com, is a separate website builder that Google still runs, and it can use your own domain. Only the free websites made from a Business Profile, at addresses ending in business.site, closed.
- Did my Google Business Profile close as well?
- No. Only the websites closed. Your listing on Google Maps and in search, with its reviews and photos, carries on as before.
- Can I get my business.site website back?
- No. Google switched the websites off in March 2024, and the addresses stopped sending visitors on to the profile on 10 June 2024. The practical step is a replacement on a domain you own.
- What should go in my profile's website field now?
- The address of a website that is your own. If you do not have one yet, leave the field empty for now, because the old address only leads to an error page.
Written by Jersey Web. Last reviewed 13 October 2026. Back to the Jargon Buster.