The standalone Local Services Ads dashboard is gone. Google began retiring it in August 2026, starting with the most popular trades categories: plumbing, HVAC, electrical, appliance repair, house cleaning, lawn care, roofing, pest control, and moving. Contractors who try to log into the old dashboard now get redirected to Google Ads automatically.

The campaigns are still running. The leads are still coming. But the interface is different, the bidding options changed, and the historical performance reports did not carry over. Google confirmed the details in its official migration guide, and trade press coverage from Search Engine Journal and MediaPost confirmed the rollout is underway.

For contractors, the question is not whether to adapt. The migration is automatic. The question is what changed, what to do about it, and how it affects the balance between paid leads and organic AI visibility.

What changed

Five things are different after the migration.

The dashboard is gone. The old LSA dashboard redirects to Google Ads. There is no separate interface for Local Services Ads anymore. Budget management, targeting, and lead responses all happen inside the Google Ads platform.

Bidding changed. Manual bidding and industry-level Target CPA are deprecated. Google Ads uses its own bidding models, which means contractors have less direct control over per-lead cost. The system optimizes automatically, which can work well or can spend more than a contractor intended.

BBB callouts are gone. The Better Business Bureau callout that appeared on LSA ads is no longer supported. Google requires at least six other structured callouts instead, such as business hours, specialties, or accepted payment methods.

Business data syncs from Google Business Profile. Business name, address, and hours now flow from the Google Business Profile to Google Ads automatically. Changes to the GBP trigger a 24 to 48 hour verification review, during which the campaign may pause temporarily.

Historical reports did not transfer. Past performance data from the LSA dashboard is not available in Google Ads. Contractors who want to keep their historical reports need to download them from the LSA redirection page before the dashboard fully deprecates. Lead history, including customer contacts and call recordings, did transfer.

What a contractor should do this week

Download the old reports. Go to the LSA redirection page and export any historical performance reports before they become inaccessible. Once the old dashboard is fully retired, the data is gone.

Review the bidding strategy. The migration deprecated manual bidding. Google Ads will use its own optimization model, which may spend differently than the old LSA setup. Check the daily budget in Google Ads during the first two weeks after migration to make sure the spend matches expectations.

Replace BBB callouts with structured callouts. Go to the campaign's assets tab in Google Ads and select at least six callouts. Business hours, specialties, accepted payment methods, and service areas are all options. Without these, the ad may display less prominently.

Update the Google Business Profile. Since business name, address, and hours now sync from the GBP to Google Ads, any errors in the GBP will propagate to ad campaigns. Verify that the GBP is accurate and complete before the migration processes the sync.

What this means for AI visibility

The LSA migration is a paid advertising change, but it connects to the larger shift toward AI-driven local search. Google AI Mode can now recommend a single business by name and even call that business on a customer's behalf. That feature is organic. It does not require ad spend. It requires the same signals that make a business visible in AI answers: content specificity, consistent business data across directories, and a complete Google Business Profile.

The contractors who relied on LSA for leads are now in a less controlled advertising environment. The ones who also invest in AI visibility are building an organic channel that does not depend on per-lead bidding. A plumber who shows up when a homeowner asks ChatGPT "who fixes water heaters in Teaneck" gets a call without paying Google for the lead. The content specificity that drives AI visibility also improves Google Business Profile quality, which now feeds the ad campaigns directly.

The migration is a prompt to balance paid and organic. LSA was comfortable. Performance Max is different. AI visibility is the channel that compounds over time without per-lead cost.

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