Google Business Profile Optimization: The Foundation -A 30-Step, 90-Day Local SEO Playbook for Restaurants

Google Business Profile (GBP), formerly Google My Business, is the single most influential free asset a restaurant has in local search, and the backbone of local SEO for restaurants. It is the listing that appears in the Google Local Pack the three-result map block above organic search results in Google Maps, and in the Knowledge Panel that surfaces when someone searches a restaurant's name directly. For a sit-down restaurant, a cloud kitchen, or a multi-location group, GBP is frequently the first and only touchpoint a prospective diner has with the business before deciding to call, get directions, or book a table.

Unlike a website, which a restaurant fully controls, a GBP listing is a living record inside Google's own index. It updates continuously and is scored against three confirmed ranking factors behind local pack ranking for restaurants: relevance (how well the profile matches search intent), distance (proximity to the searcher), and prominence (how well-known and well-reviewed the business is, both on and off Google). None of those factors responds to a single edit they respond to a sustained, structured pattern of activity, which is what this 90-day plan is built to produce.

Most restaurants starting this plan fall into one of three states: an unclaimed or abandoned listing, a claimed listing with years of inconsistent self-management, or a newly opened business with no GBP history at all. The plan works for all three, though Phase 1 naturally takes longer for the second case, since cleaning up years of inconsistent edits and conflicting data takes longer than building a profile from a blank state. Regardless of starting point, the sequence itself does not change: foundational data integrity always precedes optimization, and optimization always precedes the external authority-building work of Phase 3. Skipping ahead running a heavy review-generation campaign before NAP consistency is fixed, for instance tends to produce weaker, less durable results than following the phases in order.

This article walks through all 30 steps of the plan, organized into the three phases it follows: Foundation (Days 1–30), Optimization (Days 31–60), and Growth & Authority (Days 61–90). Each step includes a working definition, why it affects Google's ranking signals or how it appears in search results, and practical notes on execution. Results compound: most restaurants following this sequence see the clearest lift in direction requests and calls in the second half of the 90 days, once Phase 1's data corrections have propagated through Google's index and Phase 2's review and content cadence has built momentum.

Phase 1 - Days 1-30: Foundation

Phase 1 exists to remove every structural weakness before any optimization work begins effectively, this is the GBP optimization checklist every restaurant should run first. A profile with inconsistent contact information, missing categories, or unverified ownership will not respond meaningfully to posts, photos, or review campaigns Google simply has too little trust in the underlying data to reward it. These first ten steps are mostly one-time or low-frequency tasks: done once, done correctly, then maintained. Skipping or rushing them is the single most common reason GBP campaigns underperform, because every later step is built on top of what gets fixed here.

1. Claim & Verify

Claiming a Google Business Profile means formally asserting ownership of a listing Google has already auto-generated from public data, map edits, or a previous owner's account. Verification proves that claim through a postcard mailed to the business address, a phone or video call, email, or Google's instant-verification option for businesses already confirmed through Search Console. Until a listing is verified, the business cannot edit its own hours, photos, or description, and Google treats it as a lower-trust entity in ranking calculations. For a restaurant that has changed ownership, rebranded, or never previously managed its listing, this is the mandatory first move: nothing else in this plan can be executed on an unverified profile. If a competitor or former employee still holds verification, the current owner must file an ownership-transfer or reinstatement request through Google's support flow, which can take one to three weeks worth starting on day one, not day twenty.

2. NAP Consistency

NAP - name, address, phone number is the identity fingerprint Google uses for NAP consistency SEO, matching a business listing to mentions of it everywhere else on the web: its own website, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook, Apple Maps, food-delivery platforms, and local directories. When the same restaurant appears one way in one place and differently in another, Google has to decide which version is authoritative and inconsistency lowers its confidence in all of them, suppressing local ranking. Fixing NAP consistency means picking one exact, canonical version of the name, address format, and phone number, documenting it, and updating every platform to match precisely, including abbreviations and suite numbers. It is tedious, unglamorous work, and also one of the highest-leverage fixes in local SEO, because it compounds: every platform corrected adds one more confirming signal to Google's trust model.

3. Categories

Category selection is the single strongest signal Google uses to decide which searches a business profile is eligible to appear for. A restaurant that sets its primary category as the generic "Restaurant" instead of "Seafood Restaurant" or "Portuguese Restaurant" loses visibility for the exact cuisine-specific searches diners actually type. Google allows one primary category weighed most heavily and up to nine secondary categories from the full Google Business Profile categories list, which should be added for every genuinely applicable description. The primary category should always be the most precise match for what the business actually is, not the most prestigious-sounding option. Categories should be revisited periodically, because Google occasionally reclassifies listings automatically, sometimes incorrectly which is why Step 18 in Phase 2 returns to this setting as a recheck rather than a one-time task.

4. Hours & Special Hours

Standard hours tell Google when a business is open for the "open now" filter that heavily influences which results surface during an active search session. Special hours cover the exceptions: holidays, private events, seasonal closures, and temporary changes. A restaurant that fails to set special hours for a public holiday risks showing as "open" when it is closed, damaging the trust signal Google uses for that listing and frustrating searchers who arrive to a locked door a pattern Google can detect indirectly through reduced engagement and negative reviews. Setting hours 90 days out, including every known closure, removes this risk for the full plan period and should be revisited monthly.

5. Business Description

The business description is a 750-character field Google indexes as a relevance signal, separate from the category field. It is not the place for keyword stuffing Google's spam policies penalize descriptions that read as a list of search terms but it is the place to state, in plain language, what the restaurant serves, its setting, and what makes it genuinely distinct, without unverifiable superlative claims like "the best." A well-written description uses the cuisine type, neighborhood, and one or two specific, true details naturally, the way a person would describe the restaurant to a friend. This field rarely drives large ranking swings alone, but it contributes incrementally to relevance matching and is one of the first things a searcher reads when deciding whether to click through.

6. Attributes

Attributes are the checkbox-style fields Google uses to filter and refine search results beyond category and keywords outdoor seating, delivery, takeout, wheelchair accessibility, Wi-Fi, parking, accepted payment types, and dozens more. Each one left blank is a search filter the business becomes invisible to: a diner filtering Maps results for "outdoor seating" will never see a restaurant that genuinely has a terrace but never checked the box. Attributes should be audited against what the business actually offers, since Google increasingly surfaces user-submitted corrections when attributes conflict with what reviewers describe a mismatch that erodes trust over time. This is a fast step and one of the easiest wins in the entire plan, requiring no content creation, only accurate selection.

7. Photos

Photos are both a ranking input and a conversion input restaurant photo SEO starts right here: Google has stated that businesses with more photos receive more direction requests and website clicks than comparable listings with few or none, and a profile's photo count and recency factor into Google's internal quality scoring. A baseline of ten photos logo, exterior, interior, food, and team gives Google enough visual data to understand the business and gives searchers enough to decide whether to visit. Geotagging photos gives an additional, if modest, local-relevance signal. Quality matters more than volume past this baseline: a handful of well-lit, accurately representative images outperform a large batch of blurry or outdated ones, since poor-quality images can be flagged, depressing their visibility within the gallery.

8. Menu

A structured menu added through Google's native menu editor or a crawlable linked URL lets dish names, descriptions, and prices surface directly inside Google Search and Maps results, sometimes before a searcher opens the website. This matters disproportionately for food search: a large share of restaurant queries are dish-specific ("arroz de marisco near me") rather than brand-specific, and a profile with no parsable menu data is invisible to that search behavior entirely. Linking active ordering or reservation platforms alongside the menu shortens the path from search to transaction, which Google's engagement metrics reward indirectly through increased click-through and dwell time. A menu left empty, or one that links to a PDF Google cannot parse, forfeits this entire category of search traffic.

9. Messaging & Q&A

Google Business Profile's messaging feature lets searchers message the business directly from the listing, and the Q&A section lets anyone not just the business post and answer questions publicly. Both are engagement channels Google can measure directly: response rate and time to messages function as a trust signal, while an actively monitored Q&A section prevents incorrect answers from competitors, bots, or misinformed customers from standing unchallenged. Assigning clear ownership of both channels someone who checks and responds daily closes a gap that otherwise erodes over the following two phases, since Phase 2's Q&A seeding and ongoing engagement work depend on this channel already being monitored.

10. NAP Audit

This step closes the loop opened in Step 2 by actually checking, rather than assuming, that the canonical NAP has propagated correctly across the ten citation sources Google weighs most heavily for a given market typically Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook, Apple Maps, Bing Places, and category- or region-specific directories. Each source should be checked individually against the canonical version, with discrepancies logged and corrected directly on that platform, since most do not sync automatically with GBP or with each other. This audit is deliberately placed at the end of Phase 1 rather than immediately after Step 2, because citation corrections submitted to third-party platforms can take days to process, and checking too early produces false negatives. A second audit in Phase 3 (Step 28) confirms these fixes held.

Phase 2 - Days 31-60: Optimization

With the structural layer in place, Phase 2 shifts the work from correctness to activity. This is where local SEO strategy becomes visible: Google's local ranking algorithm responds to recency and engagement as much as to static completeness: a profile that posts, answers, and replies regularly outranks an otherwise identical profile that sits untouched. These ten steps establish the cadences posting, review response, photo refresh that the business needs to sustain indefinitely, not just for the remaining 60 days of this plan. Getting the rhythm right here is what separates a profile that ranks for one quarter from one that holds its position.

11. GBP Posts

Posts are short, dated updates offers, events, new menu items, behind-the-scenes content that appear directly on the profile and, for a limited window, in search results. Google has not confirmed posting frequency as a direct ranking factor, but profiles that post regularly consistently show stronger engagement metrics (views, clicks, calls) than those that do not, and a stale "last post" date is one of the visible cues searchers use to judge whether a business is still active. A minimum cadence of two posts a week, scheduled rather than ad hoc, keeps the profile visibly current without requiring daily attention. Content should rotate between promotional (offers, events) and informational (new dishes, hours changes, milestones) rather than running as a continuous stream of discounts, which Google's spam detection can flag if it reads as manipulative.

12. Q&A Seeding

Seeding the Q&A section means proactively posting and answering the eight to ten questions real customers most commonly ask before visiting parking availability, dietary accommodations, dress code, large-party policy, accessibility rather than waiting for the public to ask them first, at which point an incorrect or unanswered question can sit visible for weeks. Seeded questions should be asked from a personal Google account not administratively tied to the business, then answered from the business's owner account, which Google displays distinctly. This step both improves the searcher's pre-visit information and demonstrates active management, since a Q&A section with no business-answered questions signals neglect the same way an unanswered review backlog does.

13. Review Responses

Responding to reviews positive and negative alike is one of the few direct engagement signals entirely within the business's control, and it is visible publicly to every future searcher who reads the review section before deciding whether to visit. A two-variant restaurant review response template a warm, detailed reply for most reviews and a more SEO-oriented reply that naturally references the neighborhood, cuisine, or a specific dish for higher-visibility reviews balances authentic tone against relevance signal without crossing into keyword stuffing, which Google's spam policies explicitly flag. Working through the full backlog oldest-first in this phase, then maintaining a response window under 48 hours, closes the credibility gap a long unanswered backlog creates and sets up the faster response cadence Phase 3 tightens further.

14. Review Generation

Review count and review velocity how many reviews arrive and how consistently are, by most independent local-SEO studies, the strongest single ranking factor Google weighs for local search, ahead of nearly every on-profile optimization step in this plan. To increase Google reviews for a restaurant ethically means building a low-friction, consistent touchpoint into the normal customer flow: a table card with a QR code, a line on the receipt, or a post-visit SMS or email never an incentivized or gated request, both of which violate Google's review policies and risk the account's standing. A steady trickle of new reviews, arriving at a natural and sustained pace rather than in an unnatural spike, is both safer against Google's spam detection and more representative of the actual customer base.

15. Photo Refresh

A photo gallery that stops growing after the initial Phase 1 upload reads to Google, and to searchers, as a business that has gone quiet. Monthly refreshes new seasonal dishes, event photos, any renovation or menu change keep the gallery current and give Google fresh visual data to index, contributing to the recency signals the algorithm weighs alongside posts and reviews. This is also the point where photo volume should start climbing past the Phase 1 baseline of ten toward a working target of twenty-five by the end of this phase, prioritizing variety over repetition of similar shots.

16. Products & Services

The Products and Services sections let a business list specific, priced items that Google can surface directly in search results and in the Maps app, separate from the general menu listing useful for highlighting specific dishes, catering packages, private-event offerings, or merchandise. Listings here function similarly to a lightweight product catalog: name, description, price, and an optional photo, each one a discrete unit Google can match against a specific search query. For restaurants with catering or private-event revenue beyond daily service, this section is frequently underused and represents real, overlooked search visibility for queries the general menu listing does not capture.

17. Booking & Ordering Links

Every booking, ordering, and delivery link on the profile should be checked for accuracy and liveness a broken reservation link or a delivery link that routes to a discontinued third-party account actively damages conversion at the exact moment a searcher is ready to act. These links are also one of the clearest conversion-path signals Google can measure: a profile where searchers click through to book or order, rather than bouncing back to search results, builds the engagement data that supports stronger prominence over time. This check should be run monthly going forward, since third-party platforms change their own URLs and account structures without notifying the business.

18. Category Check

Google periodically reclassifies business listings automatically, drawing on review content, search behavior, and algorithmic inference, and this reclassification can silently override a category set correctly back in Step 3 a seafood restaurant can, without notice, be recategorized under a broader or less accurate label that reduces its eligibility for specific searches. Rechecking primary and secondary categories partway through the plan catches this drift before it compounds over the full 90 days, and should become a standing monthly check rather than a one-time task, since Google does not notify businesses when this kind of automatic reclassification happens.

19. Competitor Scan

A short, structured scan of three to five nearby direct competitors review count, star rating, posting frequency, and photo volume gives a concrete, local benchmark for what "competitive" actually means in that specific market, rather than relying on generic industry averages. This scan should be revisited at the start of each phase, since competitors' own review velocity and posting cadence change over the same 90 days, and a target that looked ambitious in Phase 1 may already be the market baseline by Phase 3. The goal is calibrating the pace of Phase 2 and Phase 3 work against what will actually move a listing ahead of the businesses it competes with for the same searches.

20. Insights Review

Google Business Profile Insights the core of GBP analytics for restaurants reports the raw search, call, and direction-request data generated by the listing, broken out by how customers found it (direct, discovery, or branded search) and what they did next. Reviewing the first month of data at the end of Phase 2 surfaces which fields, photos, or posts are underperforming a high view count with a low click-through rate, for instance, usually points to a weak photo set or description rather than a visibility problem. This review should inform, not just report on, the remaining Phase 3 work: specific underperforming elements identified here become the priority fixes in the steps that follow.

Phase 3 - Days 61-90: Growth & Authority

Phase 3 moves beyond the profile itself. Days 1 through 60 built a structurally complete, actively managed listing; the final 30 days build the authority and redundancy that let that work compound past the 90-day window rather than plateauing. This phase introduces off-profile signals citations, local SEO link building for restaurants, duplicate cleanup alongside a second pass on the data-integrity checks from Phase 1, and closes with the documentation that turns a one-time project into an ongoing, repeatable process the client or in-house team can sustain without external management.

21. Citation Expansion

Beyond the ten major directories audited in Phase 1, dozens of niche and local citation sources exist for any given market cuisine-specific directories, city tourism sites, local chamber-of-commerce listings, food-delivery aggregators, regional review platforms and each one that lists the business with consistent NAP data adds another confirming signal to Google's trust model for that listing. These citations rarely drive direct traffic on their own, but their cumulative effect on local ranking is well-documented across independent local-SEO studies, and unlike paid backlinks, they are low-risk and sustainable to build. Prioritizing citation sources that are genuinely relevant to the cuisine, neighborhood, or market over generic, low-quality directories keeps this expansion aligned with Google's broader guidance against manipulative link and citation schemes.

22. Local Backlinks

A small number two to three is a realistic target for this phase of genuine backlinks or mentions from local food bloggers, press, or tourism sites extends the authority signal beyond what the GBP listing or citations alone can provide, since Google's broader ranking system still weighs the authority of sites linking to a business's own website and profile. These should come from real relationships or real coverage a press mention, a blogger's genuine review, a tourism board's restaurant guide never from paid link schemes, which carry real risk of a Google penalty that would undo far more value than the links themselves provide.

23. Duplicate Listing Cleanup

Duplicate listings created by data-aggregator errors, a previous owner's unclosed profile, or a second location mistakenly mapped to the same address split a single business's search visibility and review count across two or more competing entries, diluting the prominence signal Google would otherwise consolidate into one authoritative listing. Identifying duplicates means searching the business name and address directly on Google Maps and checking for a second pin, then requesting a merge (for listings the business can claim) or flagging the duplicate for removal through Google's support process (for listings it cannot). This cleanup is easy to overlook because the primary listing often still appears to function normally, masking the visibility it is losing to its own duplicate.

24. Seasonal Q&A

Building on the core Q&A seeding from Phase 2, this step adds questions specific to the season and calendar ahead holiday hours, private-event capacity, large-party reservation policy, seasonal menu availability anticipating what customers will ask in the weeks immediately following the 90-day plan rather than only what they have asked historically. This is a short, low-effort addition to an already-established workflow, and it closes a gap that otherwise reopens every time the calendar turns a season, since seasonal questions from the prior cycle tend to age out of relevance rather than staying permanently useful.

25. Post Format Testing

With a GBP Posts cadence already running since Step 11, this step uses the accumulated Insights data to compare performance across the three post formats Google offers offer, event, and update rather than continuing to publish on instinct alone. Click-through rate by format, viewed against the first two months of posting history, usually reveals a clear pattern specific to that business: some restaurants see stronger engagement from event posts tied to specific dates, others from straightforward offers. Reallocating the posting mix toward whichever format the data actually supports, rather than an assumed favorite, is a low-cost adjustment with a measurable return.

26. Service-Area Detail

For restaurants that also offer catering, delivery, or off-site events beyond the physical storefront, Google allows a defined service area to be added to the profile, extending the business's search eligibility to delivery zones and surrounding neighborhoods it would not otherwise rank for based on its single fixed address. This detail is frequently left blank even by restaurants that actively do catering or delivery business, forfeiting visibility for "catering near me" or neighborhood-specific delivery searches entirely. Setting it accurately matching the actual delivery or service radius rather than an aspirational one avoids the mismatch between promised and actual coverage that produces negative reviews.

27. Photo Quality Audit

Google applies automated quality checks to uploaded photos and will flag or suppress images that are blurry, poorly lit, duplicated, or algorithmically judged irrelevant to the listing, and reviewers can also flag photos directly. A quality audit at this stage of the plan reviews the full gallery built up since Phase 1 now well past the original ten-photo baseline for anything flagged or simply underperforming, replacing it with higher-quality alternatives. This is a maintenance step rather than a growth step: its purpose is protecting the investment made in Steps 7 and 15, not adding new volume.

28. Second NAP Audit

This step repeats Step 10's citation audit against the same core directory list, checking two things: that the corrections made in Phase 1 actually held (some platforms revert edits or require periodic re-confirmation), and that no new inconsistency has entered the record through a recent menu change, address correction, or third-party data sync. NAP drift is rarely a one-time problem new locations, new delivery partnerships, and routine business changes all create fresh opportunities for inconsistency which is why this audit is built into the plan as a standing recurrence rather than a single Phase 1 task.

29. SOP Documentation

Everything executed across the 90 days the review-response variants, the posting cadence, the Q&A monitoring routine, the audit checklists should be written down as a standard operating procedure specific enough that someone unfamiliar with the account could pick it up and continue the work without guessing at tone, frequency, or process. This documentation is what separates a 90-day project from a 90-day result: without it, the gains built through Phases 1 through 3 tend to decay once the person who executed them moves on or loses bandwidth, because the underlying system was never actually captured anywhere outside their own habits.

30. 90-Day Results Summary

The closing step compiles the actual data Insights trends across the full 90 days, review count and rating movement, any tracked keyword-ranking shifts, and the citation and backlink work completed into a single baseline report. This serves two purposes: it is the evidence of what the plan actually delivered, and it is the starting point for the next quarter's targets, since a 90-day plan with no measured baseline at the end cannot meaningfully set goals for the period that follows it. Wherever possible, figures here should be the same categories tracked in Phase 2's Insights review, so the before-and-after comparison is apples to apples rather than reframed around whichever metrics happened to look best.

Why the Sequence Matters

Taken as a whole, this 30-step restaurant SEO roadmap reflects a simple premise about how Google's local search system actually works: it does not reward a single well-executed task, no matter how thorough, nearly as much as it rewards a sustained pattern of accuracy and activity across many small ones. A perfectly written business description on a profile with inconsistent NAP data will underperform. A strong review-response cadence on a profile with the wrong primary category will underperform. Each phase in this plan exists because it depends on the one before it: Foundation makes a profile trustworthy to Google's indexing system, Optimization makes it visibly active to both Google and searchers, and Growth & Authority extends that trust and activity beyond the profile itself into the broader web Google uses to confirm prominence.

The 90-day framing is deliberate but not rigid. Some steps the two citation audits, the category rechecks, the Insights reviews are explicitly built to recur well past Day 90, because Google's algorithm does not treat local ranking as a fixed state to be achieved once; it treats it as a continuously re-evaluated signal. A restaurant that completes all 30 steps and then stops posting, stops responding to reviews, and lets its photo gallery go stale will see the gains made during this plan erode over the following quarter, not because anything was undone, but because the signals that earned the ranking were never designed to be static.

For a restaurant SEO agency or in-house team managing multiple restaurant clients at once, the real value in this structure is its repeatability: the same 30 steps apply, with the same definitions and the same reasoning, whether the business is a single independent restaurant or one location in a multi-site group, because the underlying mechanics of how Google evaluates local relevance, distance, and prominence do not change by scale. What changes is only the specifics the categories, the keywords, the competitor set layered onto a structure that stays constant. Documented well, as Step 29 asks, this plan becomes less a one-time project and more a permanent operating system for how a restaurant's Google presence is run.

Target Keyword Clusters for This Content

This article supports ten keyword clusters for Google Business Profile optimization. Per Umarella's own content standard, the full 100-term keyword bank is kept as a separate CSV rather than listed on the page, to avoid doorway-page risk under Google's spam policies.

Core GBP & Local SEO

google business profile optimization, local seo for restaurants, local pack ranking restaurant

Setup & Technical

claim google business profile, verify google business listing, nap consistency seo

Reviews & Reputation

restaurant review response template, increase google reviews restaurant, google review seo impact

Content & Posts

google business profile posts, restaurant photo seo, gbp posting schedule

Citations & Off-Profile

restaurant local citations, restaurant backlinks local, google maps duplicate listing fix

Insights & Analytics

google business profile insights, direction requests google business, local seo kpi restaurant

Long-Tail & Intent

how to rank restaurant on google maps, local seo checklist for restaurants, google business profile mistakes to avoid

Competitive & Industry

restaurant competitor analysis seo, hospitality local seo, seafood restaurant seo

Engagement & Q&A

google business profile q&a tips, restaurant booking link google, restaurant reservation seo

Strategy & Planning

90 day seo plan restaurant, restaurant seo roadmap, local seo ranking factors 2026

Frequently Asked Questions

Setup & Verification

How long does Google Business Profile verification take?

Short answer

Most restaurants are verified within five to seven days by postcard, or instantly through phone, email, or video verification where Google offers it.

Detailed answer

Postcard verification, still the most common fallback, is mailed to the physical business address and typically arrives within a week, though it can take longer in some regions. Phone and email verification, where available, complete within minutes. Video verification, used for businesses without a storefront sign, is usually reviewed within a few business days.

Note for multi-location groups

Each location must be verified individually verifying one address does not extend to sibling locations under the same brand.

What happens if someone else already claimed the listing?

The current owner must file an ownership-transfer or reinstatement request through Google's support flow, which typically takes one to three weeks and should be started as early as possible, since nothing else in a GBP plan can proceed on a listing the business doesn't control.

Reviews & Reputation

Does responding to every review actually affect ranking?

Google has not confirmed review responses as a direct ranking factor on their own, but profiles with consistent response habits tend to show stronger overall engagement metrics, and response behavior is visible to every searcher deciding whether to visit making it a conversion factor even where its ranking impact is indirect.

Is it against Google's policy to ask customers for reviews?

Asking is allowed; incentivizing or gating the request is not. A receipt line, table card, or post-visit message asking for honest feedback is compliant. Offering a discount in exchange for a review, or filtering which customers get asked based on their likely rating, both violate Google's review policies.

Content & Posting

How often should a restaurant post on Google Business Profile?

A minimum of two posts a week keeps a profile visibly active without demanding daily attention. Consistency matters more than volume a profile posting five times one week and then going silent for a month signals less reliability than one posting twice a week without fail.

Do Google Business Profile posts expire?

Standard update posts remain visible indefinitely, though they drop out of the more prominent recent-activity placement after about seven days. Event and offer posts display until their stated end date, after which they're archived rather than deleted.