Google Business Profiles can only be managed in SERPs now. What does this mean for you?
Through all of these new action icons, Google is restricting businesses and listing management agencies like 3PRIME to modify GBP profiles through the search results page.
Over a year ago, Google announced its plans to phase out GBP Manager except as a place to see all of your listings, if you manage more than one, and that all GBP management will eventually be done via the SERP. That bill has come due as Google has officially ended Google Business Profile Manager.
Google Maps and Search are now the ONLY way to create, optimize and maintain your Business profile, analyze company performances, as well as engage with customers remotely. Google Business Profiles announced that its smartphone app would be discontinued in July 2022, while stating that the Google Maps app will serve as the ideal place to respond to client messages via mobile.
We are dissatisfied with this change as we believe that Google has failed to comprehend user concerns about how listing management is handled and it is making it even more difficult to get in contact with Google support, a process that was originally quite difficult.
And one of the biggest crimes with this new update is that there is no tool for monitoring reviews in one place, which is proving a significant challenge for businesses who manage dozens of listings. Every feature necessitates even more clicks to get where you need to go, which has proven to be incredibly inconvenient.
It’s ironic. Businesses depend on Google Business Profiles to get their businesses to appear on the web and Google has gone out of their way to make it even more challenging for a business owner, or agency like 3PRIME, to manage said listings. It shouldn’t have to be an orchestration to even get to edit your listing information. Nor should it be challenging to contact support when the need arises.
If you use Google Business Profiles as your main way of communicating with your customers, you may want to consider new or easier ways for them to contact you – phone, email, SMS, or a messenger service like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.
We should expect Google to be the Gold standard, but they are disappointing us by the day. The execution of Google Business Profiles is becoming extremely poor.