- Business owners can mark themselves as “Temporarily Closed” on Google My Business.
- Google will be using authoritative data from the governments and other reliable sources to bring this change automatically on the business listings.
Coronavirus pandemic has jolted the world, affecting the economy, shares, stocks, in short everything. People are home-bound and working from the closed capacities of their houses. But the efficacy has drastically deteriorated.
During this bizarre situation, Google is trying hard to help and support people across the globe. It is taking the necessary steps to protect the health of its team members and give priority to the critical services. Because of all this, Google keeps bringing some temporary changes to its various features and tools.
Many areas that have been heavily impacted by the pandemic have closed down, and Google has tagged those places with a COVID-19 Alert. This will help people find relevant information about these places and how they are affected by the pandemic.
Many businesses have had to shut down temporarily during this time, and apart from dealing with the tremendous loss in the business, the owners have to do another tedious task, i.e.: inform their clients and customers on their websites or through individual messages. So, Google has come up with a swifter and smoother method. It has upgraded its features by adding some modifications so that the listed businesses can directly notify Google My Business portal, and search giant will automatically mark them as “Temporarily closed” on Search and Maps.
The Google Support Forum further explains the method of how local business owners can mark their shops or work locations as “temporarily closed” in Maps and Search.
All they have to do is to sign themselves in at Google My Business portal, hit the “Info” tab, and then click on the arrow to expand the section marked as “Close this business on Google.” Once a drop-down menu appears, just click on the “Mark as temporarily closed” and that is it!
This feature is, however, not available for the businesses that haven’t shut down completely or have special work hours during this pandemic. But these businesses can still update their status and renewed hours in Google Search and Maps.
Through all these steps, Google is trying to ensure the quality and reliability of information for every business and location, so that nobody suffers more during this already hard and critical time.
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