Local Services Ads stopped showing featured professionals and made the headshot optional

A Google notice says that starting in October, featured professionals will no longer show on Local Services Ads, and the option to add and highlight individual professionals under a business appears to have been removed. Separately, the professional headshot is now optional and does not affect ad serving.

The notice reads "Starting in October, featured professionals will no longer show on your ads." The headshot change says a headshot "is optional and won't affect ad serving," so leaving one out will not reduce how often an ad appears. Photos, reviews and the rest of the ad content are unchanged. The headshot wording was spotted a couple of weeks before the featured-professionals notice, and the linked help document had not yet been updated to describe either change when the report was published.