DentistDiscoverable field guide
The Dentist's GBP Q&A Is Gone: What to Do With the Questions Patients Still Ask
A dental practice checked its Google Business Profile one morning and found the Q&A section frozen. The questions patients had asked were still there. The answers were still there. But no new questions could be added, no new answers could be posted, and the section was quietly dying. The practice had spent two years seeding that section with the questions patients asked most. The section was gone, and nobody had told them.
Google discontinued the My Business Q&A API on November 3, 2025, and Q&A is no longer part of the standard profile management workflow. The change did not make headlines, and most dental marketing guides still recommend seeding the Q&A section with common questions, because the guides were written before the shutdown and nobody updated them. The advice is outdated. The questions are not.
What actually disappeared
The Q&A API let a practice, or its agency, add questions and answers to the profile programmatically, and it let tools manage the section at scale. With the API gone, the section cannot be managed that way anymore. The questions that are already there stay visible, for now, but the practice cannot add to them, cannot update them, and cannot rely on the section as a channel. The GMB Pro blog on Google Business Profile and local SEO is blunt about it: in 2026, Q&A is no longer part of the standard profile management workflow, and the older guides that recommend seeding it are outdated.
The ProSites guide to Google Business Profile tips for dentists still recommends the old approach: seed the list with common questions and answers, and monitor it regularly. That advice was correct when it was written, and it is wrong now. A practice that follows it will spend time on a section that cannot be updated, while the questions patients are actually asking go unanswered somewhere else. The section is not coming back. The work has to move.
Where the questions go now
The questions go on the website, in a FAQ section with schema, where the practice controls them. The GMB Pro checklist puts it plainly: put important questions in your website FAQs and keep the profile fields complete. The website FAQ is the replacement, and it is a better one in most ways. It can be updated, it can carry schema that helps search engines understand it, and it can answer the question in full, with the detail a profile Q&A never had room for.
The questions themselves have not changed. Patients still ask whether the practice takes their insurance, whether new patients are being accepted, what the parking situation is, whether the practice sees children, and how much a cleaning costs. The difference is where the answer lives. A patient who finds the answer on the website, with schema behind it, is a patient who has already started trusting the practice. A patient who finds the question unanswered on a frozen Q&A section is a patient who calls the next practice.
How to move the answers
Start with the questions that are already in the frozen Q&A section. Copy them, check whether the answers are still accurate, and move them to the website FAQ, with the answers rewritten in full. Then add the questions the front desk hears every week, the ones that never made it into the profile because nobody asked them there. The front desk knows the real list. It is the list of questions that get asked on the phone, and it is longer than the list that ever appeared on the profile.
Keep the profile fields complete while the move happens. The profile still does the job it always did: name, categories, address, hours, services, photos, reviews, and a way to book or call. The Q&A section was never the profile. It was a feature on the profile, and the feature is gone. The profile is still there, and the website FAQ is where the answers live now. The practice that moves the answers keeps them. The practice that waits for the section to come back loses them.
Keep reading: how dental FAQ pages win featured snippets, the insurance questions patients actually ask, and why the services list on a profile has to be accurate cover the nearby cases in this series.
Frequently asked questions
What happened to the Q&A section on a Google Business Profile?
Google discontinued the My Business Q&A API on November 3, 2025, and Q&A is no longer part of the standard profile management workflow. Questions that are already there stay visible for now, but the practice cannot add to them, cannot update them, and cannot rely on the section as a channel.
Can I still add questions and answers to my dental profile?
No, not through the Q&A section. The API that let practices and agencies manage the section is gone. Older guides still recommend seeding the Q&A section with common questions, but that advice was written before the shutdown and is now outdated.
Where should the questions go now?
On the website, in a FAQ section with schema. The website FAQ can be updated, it can carry schema that helps search engines understand it, and it can answer the question in full, with the detail a profile Q&A never had room for. Put important questions in your website FAQs and keep the profile fields complete.
What questions do dental patients actually ask?
Whether the practice takes their insurance, whether new patients are being accepted, what the parking situation is, whether the practice sees children, and how much a cleaning costs. The front desk knows the real list. It is the list of questions that get asked on the phone, and it is longer than the list that ever appeared on the profile.
Does the rest of the profile still matter without Q&A?
Yes. The profile still does the job it always did: name, categories, address, hours, services, photos, reviews, and a way to book or call. The Q&A section was a feature on the profile, not the profile itself. The feature is gone. The profile is still there, and it is still the thing patients see first.