Category: Google Maps

Google has released version 4.3 of the Google My Business API. Version 4.2 was released in August and this new release brings new functionality including the ability to read and respond to customer Q&A, read reviews in bulk, Identify unclaimed locations and more.

Last month, Google introduced a new group of analytics data in Google My Business Insights called “branded” searches. Google defined them as “Customers who find your listing searching for a brand related to your business.” Joy Hawkins met with Google…

Joy Hawkins noticed that Google recently updated the steps in Google My Business for service area businesses to sign up. Joy said they changed the process for some of the clients she manages.

A week or so ago, Google told us that they released an update to Google My Business Insights that would result in us getting improvements in terms of how soon we see fresh data from the analytics tools. Well, Google misspoke and now we are told we won…

Google has begun rolling out a new design for their hotel results local pack in web search. So if you search Google for hotels near X, Google will show you a new look for hotel results in that area, one that looks more like the hotel search results por…

Kara from Google posted in the Google My Business Help forums that Google “made improvements to ensure that your Insights data is more up-to-date.” So the Google My Business Insights reports can “now see Insights data up to yesterday.”

Google My Business made a small but useful change to the Google My Business dashboard where you edit your business listing. Now Google will show and let you edit your primary and additional (secondary) categories instead of lumping them into one big ca…

Google announced a revamp of the Google My Business app to help businesses create and manage their local listings in Google Maps. The new features in the app include a review management section, insight analytics, profile management, Google Posts mana…

Google has added a link in some of the local knowledge panels, including the hotel ones, that say “see other locations.” So when you are viewing a specific location, it lets you click a link to see other locations from the same or similar brand.
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Google My Business said on Twitter that while they are reviewing the feedback around expanding the data in the Insights tab, there are no current plans to give more than a quarter worth of data in that analytics section. It doesn’t mean it won’t happe…

Google has a feature to discover more places for some local intent queries. According to RankRanger, the feature exploded in terms of how often it is shown, starting on October 24th. In the US, it increased by almost 130%, from about 3.5% of queries …

A couple weeks ago, Google announced a new feature in Google Maps and Local to follow a specific location or venue. The feature now seems to be rolled out and you can see it by searching for your favorite place to eat, shop or whatever. When you clic…

A couple months ago we reported Google was testing future open dates within Google Maps listings and Google My Business. Well, this weekend, Google officially announced it in the Google My Business Help forums. Allyson Wright, Community Manager, Googl…

Last week we reported Google was dropped addresses for some local service businesses. Well, Google posted over the weekend in the Google My Business help forums that they went ahead and separated out the addresses and service areas for these local ser…

Google seems to have dropped some the addresses from Google My Business listings for service area businesses. It seems like some businesses that set a service area in their accounts would see their addresses disappear from the Google My Business conso…

We know that Google is now going to be letting customers use Google Assistant’s duplex technology to book appointments or make reservations on their behalf. With that, Michael Wallace posted on Twitter that one of his customers has a new section to en…

It looks like there is a recent bug with the Google knowledge panel images that some are actually missing. It was working fine a couple of hours ago, but right now, the images for many are simply blank. I assume it will be fixed soon.

Google has added the ability to book reservations or schedule appointments directly from the local pack. This is a feature from the Reserve with Google platform but now it has surfaced directly in the local pack results.

Google Maps is showing some people a card asking them to to take charge of their listings in Google My Business. Google is showing a “go to Google My Business” card where you can post updates and information about your business, directly in the Google …