Google keeps us on our toes with all of its updates and changes! Lucky for our clients, we are always up to date with the latest news. Which means we are constantly working to ensure best practices. A recent update, however, has changed a significant part of everyone’s Google Business Profile (GBP). But fear not, this blog has all the information you need for a successful and user-end-friendly page.
Business Hours
GBP has updated its policy so that certain places and business categories are no longer allowed to display business hours, including apartment buildings and complexes. What we are seeing now is the following:
- Businesses trying to update hours of operations are denied and rejected to make changes.
- Many businesses are getting hours removed by Google.
Fortunately, we have found a temporary solution that we have attempted to implement for certain listed businesses. We are going into a business’s profile, removing Apartment Building as the main category, and updating it to Apartment Complex. Before changing the category to Apartment Complex, the profile business hours we attempted to update were denied numerous times; this was until we updated the category, and fortunately, the change has stuck for a week now.
Google Support stated: “Certain types of businesses shouldn’t provide hours, including those with varied hours (like schedules for different types of activities, including showtimes, worship services, or classes) and those that operate only by appointment.”
We currently do not know how long Google will allow our workaround; However, this process has worked for most of our clients so far.
If you are a current ApartmentSEO® client, please reach out to your Account Manager or email clientsupport@apartmentseo.com for assistance in updating your categories and hours. Not a current client? Reach out to an ApartmentSEO® rep for a consultation for questions about the new phase Google has rolled out with Google Business Profile.
