Google's LSA rules changed, and the gap between businesses who know it and those who don't is showing up in lead quality every day.
Google Is Now Scoring Two Things It Did Not Prioritize Before
For years, LSA rankings came down to the basics: review count, budget, proximity, and how fast you answered the phone. Those still matter, but Google has shifted its algorithm by adding two new primary signals: whether your business is likely to win a specific job before your ad is shown, and whether your profile meets a minimum completeness threshold to compete at all. Both signals have to work in your favor before Google will even consider showing your ad.
Google Is Predicting Whether You'll Win This Job
For every incoming lead, Google estimates how likely your business is to successfully handle it based on five factors:
How well your service categories match the job type
How close you are to the customer's location
How fast you've historically answered phone calls
How quickly you respond to message leads
How many different ways a potential customer can contact you
Factors three, four, and five are where most businesses are leaving points on the table.
Phone responsiveness is what Google tracks behind the scenes, and specifically, what percentage of your inbound calls are answered.
Across Scorpion's LSA portfolio, businesses below the 85% answer rate lose ranking signals that no budget increase can recover.
The target is 90% or higher. Anything below 85% is handing leads to a competitor.
Message response time is the factor Google displays directly on your ad. Once your average crosses 5 minutes, you lose the "Typically replies in a few min" badge, the one customers actually respond to.
Google shows one of four messages on your ad:
Typically replies in a few minutes
Typically replies in 15 minutes
Typically replies in 1 hour
Typically replies in a few hours
Customers searching for a plumber or a lawyer pick the first one almost every time. If your ad shows anything slower than "a few minutes," you're losing leads before the customer ever clicks.
Contact options are the most overlooked factor on the list. The more ways a customer can reach you (phone, messaging, booking, and Direct Business Search), the more likely Google is to surface your ad.
Direct Business Search (DBS) is the one that causes the most confusion. When DBS is enabled, your LSA is the only result that appears when someone searches your business name directly. You only pay for new customers, and anyone who already knows your business and searches for you by name is a free lead.
Each opt-in is another doorway. Skip one, and you're invisible to the customers who would have walked through it.
Meet the Threshold or You're Out
Google also scores how complete and trustworthy your profile is, and there's no partial credit. You either meet the thresholds, or you don't.
The thresholds:
5 or more photos on your profile
3 or more static callouts (short trust phrases you manually add, like "Licensed & Insured," "Free Estimates," or "24/7 Emergency Service")
Full verification with zero policy violations
Opted into every feature Google offers: messaging, booking, and Direct Business Search
Google doesn't reward being close. At 4 photos, you're absent from that ranking signal entirely.
The Five-Minute Profile Audit:
Already a Scorpion client? Our LSA team has you covered. These steps are part of an active workflow we're managing on your behalf. But if you're handling your LSA profile on your own, here's what to check first:
Photos: Do you have 5 or more uploaded?
Static Callouts: Do you have at least 3 added?
Feature Opt-Ins: Are messaging, booking, and Direct Business Search all turned on?
Message Response Time: What response time is your ad publicly displaying right now?
Phone Responsiveness: Is your answer rate at or above 85%?
If any of these fall below the threshold, fix it before touching your budget. Spending more on an ineligible profile won’t help you rank.
If you want to see exactly where your profile stands and what it would take to recover lost ground, talk to a Scorpion LSA specialist today.
