Google Local Services Ads are serving in cities that advertisers never selected as service areas, according to multiple independent reports posted on X on October 1. Len Raleigh first flagged the issue, writing: "Something is wrong here.. California LSAs are showing advertisers from Illinois, New Jersey, Florida and Texas."

Local Services Ads work on a simple geographic principle: an advertiser explicitly designates the cities and service areas the business covers, and Google only shows that ad to searchers in those areas. That contract appears to be broken. A search in Fresno, California is returning LSA listings from firms based in New Jersey — and ads from Arizona providers are appearing in New Jersey searches.

How the bug was confirmed

Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable, who also reported seeing "NJ and Arizona listings" in his own tests, asked Anthony Higman — an LSA specialist at online advertising firm Advertise With Robandt — to investigate. Higman checked the affected advertiser profiles directly and verified the targeting mismatch.

"In each profile is show you what geos they have selected. These NJ firms DO NOT have Fresno or Arizona selected," Higman wrote on X. "So yeah, Len is right and there is a bug here right now. These should NOT be serving in Fresno. My B! Took me a min to get this one."

The verification method matters here. Every LSA profile displays the geographic areas the advertiser has chosen, so anyone can cross-check a suspicious listing by opening the profile and reading the selected service geos. In these cases, the geos on file do not include the locations where the ads are appearing. Higman shared screenshots walking through exactly where that setting lives inside the advertiser profile.

Confirmed bug or silent policy change?

Google has not confirmed the bug. That is the critical caveat: everything currently known comes from advertiser-side observation and profile-level targeting checks, not from a Google statement.

Two possibilities remain open. The first is a straightforward serving bug — a technical fault causing Google to ignore the selected service-area settings when matching ads to searcher locations. The second is more consequential for advertisers: Google may be auto-expanding LSA targeting beyond the areas businesses selected, without their permission or notification. If the latter is true, advertisers could be paying for leads from markets they cannot legally or practically serve.

That distinction carries real weight for local service businesses in regulated verticals. Contractors, law firms and home-service providers often hold licenses only in specific states. A New Jersey firm receiving lead calls from Fresno cannot take that work, yet LSA billing is lead-based — meaning advertisers may be charged for leads they have no ability to convert.

The cross-state pattern in the reports also suggests the problem is not isolated to a single region. Raleigh's screenshot showed advertisers from Illinois, New Jersey, Florida and Texas all appearing in California searches, and Schwartz's own test surfaced Arizona listings in New Jersey queries.

What advertisers should do now

For businesses running Local Services Ads, the immediate step is monitoring lead quality. If calls and messages start arriving from outside your designated service areas, open the LSA profile and verify the selected geos are still intact. If the settings are correct but out-of-area leads persist, document the lead details and the profile settings before disputing the charges with Google.

Advertisers can also report incorrect serving directly through the standard LSA support channels. Volume matters: Google typically acknowledges and triages serving issues once enough advertisers flag the same behavior with reproducible examples.

At Search Engine Land, we've asked Google for comment on the reported behavior and will update this story if the company responds or confirms a fix.

What to watch

Monitor Google's LSA changelog and the Ads Liaison account on X for an acknowledgment, and keep an eye on whether Google retroactively issues credits for out-of-area leads generated during this window — that will signal whether the company treats this as a billing-impacting bug or an intentional targeting change.