Google My Business (GMB) is one of the easiest ways to improve the appearance of your site in search results. It’s essentially a local business listing service that is widely used by companies around the world to create and manage their Google listings, which appear when customers find their companies on Google search and Maps.
For businesses, GMB is the best tool that allows them to attract potential clients and share information about their operations. That includes adding your business name, location, and hours. Besides, enable them to monitor and reply to customer reviews, as well as learn how people search for them.
GMB certainly offers a convenient and cost-effective means for your company to be more discoverable for customers both online and in real life. However, things have slightly changed recently.
Due to the unprecedented COVID-19 situation globally, Google is temporary removing some features from Google My Business until the pandemic ends. This announcement is made to help implement social distancing that is continuously requested by all countries around the world.
The pandemic – COVID-19 has spread over 195 countries, flowing from China to Europe and now to the rest of the world. In these times of urgency where world leaders are requesting people to practice social distancing, Google has come forward to play its part at helping them. Like other businesses, Google wants to act responsibly and ensure that thousands of its employees keep safe from the pandemic that has already caused several deaths throughout the world. Their recent announcement of removing some features from GMB is made to protect the health of its team members and reduce the need for people to come into its offices.
Google says by temporarily removing some features, GMB functionality will become limited. In addition, there may be some delays in support as the company is prioritizing critical services. Meanwhile, its focus is to keep the information on its search engine and map reliable and of high quality. By doing so, they want to help businesses that are affected by COVID-19 do their best by keeping their customers updated.
To let people understand about the changes they have made to GMB services, Google has made a quick guide. The company says that it will make sure to update any changes they will make in the future.
Here are the changes they have made public through the guide:
What Features Have Been Removed?
New Reviews
Google is temporarily disabling new reviews feature for all businesses until further notice. During the temporary removal of this feature, Google will not publish any new reviews to any Google My Business profile. However, users can still be able to post and see their own reviews, but their posts will not be visible to other users during this time.
Review Replies
The review reply feature is also disabled by Google. With no new feedback coming up, companies will be clearly less in need to be able to reply right now. However, companies can still respond to respond to existing comments on their profile. It also refers to editing the contents of all existing responses.
Q&A
Q&As have been dropped from the profiles entirely. This means that all previous Q&As will not be available and users can not post new questions.
In their post, Google only talks about the ‘new Q&As’, however, after checking a number of businesses, it’s found that all Q&As appear to have gone.
What Features Are Now Limited?
New Listing
In light of the current situation, Google has prioritized its review listing process for health-related businesses, while making no changes to its functionality. All other types of businesses can expect delays when adding, claiming and receiving listing verifications.
Meanwhile, Google has not given any statement regarding the length of the delay.
Editing Business Information
Local companies are undergoing so many adjustments at this time, making Google to first prioritize company listing updates for all health-care organizations. They are also giving priority to all the operating hours, temporary suspensions, business details and business traits for all COVID-19 outbreak-affected businesses.
Similar to limitations in the new listing feature, businesses aren’t health-related can expect delays to the listing edits.
Anything Else Worth Knowing?
Effects on Google Posts
As far as getting updates from several users, Google has not restricted Google posts functionality. That means you can still use Google My Business listing to public posts to share new updates with your customers during this difficult global situation. But due to the seriousness of the situation, that may also change as time goes on.
Though Google posts are still available, there is a high spike of posts being rejected. Many SEO experts are reporting that they are seeing a higher number of rejections, regardless of the nature of the content. Google, however, has not given any statement about why a higher number of posts are being rejected or whether new guidelines are in place for the time being.
Nonetheless, Google post is still effective to ensure that vital information and organizational improvements are accessible to searchers at the present time.
Changes in Business Names
Google is generally very stringent when it comes to business names in GBM but due to the present situation it seems to have loosened its rules by allowing restaurants to include ‘delivery available’ or ‘take out’ delivery available to their business names.
Why Is Google Doing All This?
From what we can tell through our observation, Google is making these changes primarily for two reasons.
1. To make sure all health-related businesses are able to keep the public update about critical information related to Covid-19.
2. To limit the burden on businesses who are likely to be flooded with questions related to the pandemic.
Besides, as said earlier, Google wants to put all its efforts to protect its staff health, at the same time prioritizing its focus on businesses that provide critical health services to their communities.
Several businesses rely on Google My Business to ensure that people are made aware of changes such as opening hours. And if they provide essential services to the public, then up-to-date information is quite important to ensure people do not make unnecessary trips and stay home safe.
That said, local businesses need as much support as possible right now, but the lack of feedback now prevents customers from supporting the local businesses they like.
A Final Note
There is no timeline for how long these limitations and changes to GMB will be in effect but we can assume that these will not be the last changes we will see during these critical times.
For now, we believe businesses should make the best use of all available features in the GMB to keep their customers updated on their operations, despite the limitations and changes made in the tool. Meanwhile, keeping their responsibility in mind, they should put an effort to spread awareness in their customers regarding the precautions they should take, such as practicing social distancing.
We are here playing our part in order to keep our customers prepared during this time. If you are one of our customers and have a question regarding the recent changes, please reach out to us for more information.