Google Adds Link To Place Food Delivery Orders, Make Doctor Appointments & More

Google has launched a new way for businesses to add links to how their customers can order food delivery, reserve tables, and book appointments through Google Search and Google Maps.

This new feature is likely to be built directly into Google My Business but for now, if you want to participate, you can fill out this form.

Google said that when this feature is enabled on a business’s Google My Business dashboard, the searcher will see a link to a third-party booking and ordering service, where they can complete their order or reserve their table. They shared this picture of how the interface will look for searchers:

Google said the links to booking options will appear automatically for eligible businesses. Currently there is no way to specifically request this service for your business.

Linda Buquet posted more details about this new feature on her forum including this useful FAQs:

Q) Which partners are included at launch?
A) Grubhub, Eat24, Delivery.com, BeyondMenu and MyPizza.com

We’ll add more partners gradually. Content partners can express interest in joining the program using this form.

Q) Can a business owner add a custom action link or request inclusion?
A) No, right now, business owners cannot add custom links. If a business has an existing relationship with one of our content partners, action links to that partner should appear for that business.

Q) Can a business owner request the removal of an action link?
A) Merchants can reach out to our merchant support (Help Center link) and our support staff will assist in removing the action link from their business listing.

Q) What if multiple providers have content for the same business?
A) If ordering from a restaurant is possible via more than one provider, the results will include all providers — when you tap the “Place an order” link, all available merchants will show.

Q) Are Google Login and/or Wallet requirements for this feature?
A) No, these are not requirements.

Bing recently enabled a similar feature for online delivery orders for restaurants in their local results as well.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.