Google officially displays years in business in local pack

After several months of testing, Google has officially launched this new label that shows how many years your business has been in operation.

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Google quietly announced that the “years in business” label is now live for businesses that want to display how many years they are in business within the Google Search local pack.

What it looks like. Here is a screen shot of my business, RustyBrick, showing the 25+ years in business label in a local pack listing within the Google Search results:

Google Local X Years In Business 1606220235

How do you get this label. Google said you need to provide the open date in your Google My Business profile. Google explained you can do this by logging into your Google My Business account, clicking on your location, then selecting the “info” option from the menu and then click on “add opening date.”

More history. It seems Google started testing this back in September 2020 and then started to roll this out more broadly in November 2020. And now, in February 2021, Google officially announced this as a feature.

Prior to that, Google tested a feature to communicate to customers labeling your future open date for new businesses.

Why we care. Sometimes showing that your business has been in operation for 5 or more years can help searchers trust your business more. So if your business has been around for some time, adding the open date can help encourage a searcher to click on your listing and potentially call or visit your location, hopefully ultimately leading to a sale.

Google wrote you can “add an opening date to your Business Profile to tell customers when your business first opened, or will open, at its address.”


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is 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 can be followed on Twitter here.

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