Temporary Closed My Business ListingDespite initial concerns that changing a Google My Business listing from ‘open’ to ‘temporarily closed’ would negatively impact visibility and/or organic rankings, Google’s Dan Sullivan has confirmed that this will not be the case.

Many businesses around the world have had to temporarily close their doors as a result of coronavirus, which led to a concerned Twitter user tweeting Dan Sullivan to ask whether the visibility of companies would drop if their My Business listing was updated to ‘temporarily closed’. Mr Sullivan’s response, as shown on the right, was very clear and concise; “Temporarily closed doesn’t impact ranking or visibility”.

Temporarily ClosedHowever, when users changed their business listing to become ‘temporarily closed’, a warning was appearing within Google to state that making the change would, in fact, result in a reduced level of visibility being suffered (see right).

Positively though, Google quickly acted to rectify this issue and, as of March 30th, its guidance regarding temporary closures of businesses affected by COVID-19 was updated to ensure that temporarily closed businesses will now be treated the same as an open business:

“If your business is affected by COVID-19, update your Google My Business profile to provide the most accurate information to your customers… Marking your business temporarily closed will not affect search ranking and it will be treated similar to open businesses.”

Now, businesses that have changed their My Business hours to ‘temporary closed’ will see the following message appearing within their listing instead, which works far more effectively for businesses worldwide:

Temporarily Business Listing Hours

Change your opening hours by following these simple instructions:

  • Sign in to Google My Business on desktop.
  • In the menu on the left, click Info.
  • To the right, point to the section “Close this business on Google.”
  • Expand this section and click click “Mark as temporarily closed.”

Other Coronavirus Articles That May Interest You:

Latest News

What are SERPs in SEO

What are SERPs in SEO?

March 22, 2023

If you are new to the SEO industry, you might have seen the term SERPs being mentioned. This abbreviation simply means Search Engine Results Pages, which are seen by online users after they have carried out a keyword search on Google, or any other search engine. SERPs include organic search results, PPC results, Local listings,

The Importance of Tracking Your Sales for Google Shopping Campaigns

The Importance of Tracking Your Sales for Google Shopping Campaigns

March 20, 2023

Google Shopping campaigns are a great tool for e-commerce businesses that want to increase their online visibility and generate more profits. Through these campaigns, online retailers can promote their products directly to potential customers in the most efficient way possible. Helping them to reach the right audience at the right time with relevant product information.

Google Core Update March 2023

Google Releases March 2023 Core Update

March 17, 2023

The update is Google’s first algorithm update in 2023 and the first in more than six months. Google have announced that it has rolled out its first algorithm core update since September 2022. Although it can take up to 2 weeks to fully launch worldwide, webmasters are already noticing changes to their organic rankings. What