GBP Location Sync — WordPress Plugin

Syncs Google Business Profile data (NAP, hours, rating, temp closures) to a WordPress CPT location with ACF fields. Google is the source of truth for everything except hand-edited hours, which survive until Google's own hours change.

We open roughly 7 new locations a year. When a location closes for weather, mark it Temporarily Closed in GBP once and the next sync propagates it here — no closing the same location on several channels by hand.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.0+
• ACF Pro 6.0+
• PHP 8.0+
• Places API (New) key — hours, holiday overrides and open/closed status
• SerpAPI key — name, address, phone, rating, review count
• Maps Embed API key (optional — falls back to a keyless lat/lng embed)

Setup

1. Google Cloud Console

1. Create a project at console.cloud.google.com
2. Enable Places API (New) and billing on that project
3. (Optional) Enable Maps Embed API on the same project
4. Create an API key

No OAuth. The plugin reads only public place data, by Place ID.

2. Install Plugin

Copy the plugin folder to wp-content/plugins/ and activate.

3. Configure

1. Go to Locations → Sync Settings
2. Paste the SerpAPI key and the Places API key → Save Settings
3. Set Brand Name Prefix (e.g. Emergency Dental of) so post titles and slugs come out as the short location name
4. Give each location post a Google Place ID — edit the post → Profile tab. Locations without one are reported but not synced.

Syncing

Manual only — there is no cron. Two buttons on the Locations tab:

Sync Now on a row runs a full sync for that one location.

How hours are protected

The plugin stores a snapshot of whatever hours Google last returned and writes only when a new fetch differs from that snapshot. A hand-edited value therefore survives indefinitely while Google is unchanged, and is overwritten the moment Google genuinely moves. Emptying the hours field forces a repopulate on the next sync.

How Temp Closure Sync Works

When a location is marked Temporarily Closed in Google Business Profile (e.g. for a snow storm):

1. Places API returns businessStatus = "CLOSED_TEMPORARILY"
2. The next sync sets ACF loc_status = CLOSED_TEMPORARILY and loc_temp_closed = 1
3. Use these fields in your theme templates to show closure banners

When Google reopens the location, the next sync reverts both fields. Business status is machine-owned and is written on every successful fetch — it is not snapshot-gated. CLOSED_PERMANENTLY deliberately does not unpublish the post.

Special Hours (Holiday / Emergency)

Derived by diffing the Places API currentOpeningHours (next seven days, each period dated) against the regular week. Any date whose hours differ becomes a row in the loc_special_hours repeater:

• date — YYYY-MM-DD
• is_closed — 1/0
• open_time / close_time

Rows dated beyond the seven-day window are hand-entered future closures and are left alone. Dates Google did not answer for are treated as unknown, never as closed.

ACF Fields Reference

Review content is not synced here — it lives in Airtable. This plugin stores the rating and count only.

Template Usage

// Check temp closure in template
$temp_closed = get_field('loc_temp_closed', $post->ID);
if ($temp_closed) {
    echo '<div class="alert">This location is temporarily closed.</div>';
}

// Display hours
$hours = get_field('loc_hours', $post->ID);
foreach ($hours as $row) {
    if (!$row['is_closed']) {
        echo $row['day'] . ': ' . $row['open_time'] . ' – ' . $row['close_time'];
    }
}

Tests

GBP_Hours_Rules is pure logic — no WordPress, no IO — and is covered by a zero-dependency runner (Local's bundled PHP has no phar extension, so there is no Composer or PHPUnit here):

"$HOME/Library/Application Support/Local/lightning-services/php-8.2.29+0/bin/darwin-arm64/bin/php" tests/run-tests.php