Google Business Profile
Search Engine Land is your definitive source for Google Business Profile news and content. You’ll find a variety of up-to-date and authoritative resources, including the latest news, tactic-rich tutorials, and the latest data-driven insights to help you optimize your local search presence, work smarter, and make better decisions.
Why Google Business Profile matters for your strategy
Google Business Profile (GBP) is essential for businesses looking to attract local customers, improve their online visibility, and manage customer relationships effectively. With new features like AI-transcribed menu uploads, staying updated on GBP innovations can significantly impact your local SEO strategy. Whether you’re optimizing GBP listings, managing reviews, or utilizing advanced insights, this page offers tools and tips tailored to your business goals.
Our comprehensive coverage ensures you stay ahead of trends, such as new features for Google Business Profile, changes to local search algorithms, and actionable tips for maximizing the impact of your GBP; we break down what these changes mean for your local SEO strategy.
What you read here is written by our experienced in-house team, alongside subject matter experts from leading brands and agencies.
Explore strategies to improve your local visibility, manage customer interactions seamlessly, and improve your business’s reputation online
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How Google and Yelp handle fake reviews and policy violations
A side-by-side analysis of Google and Yelp's respective approaches, policies and punitive measures.
Trends behind the Google title tag changes; Monday’s daily brief
Plus, submit a pitch to speak at SMX Next
Your AI and ML primer — and why it matters for search; Friday’s daily brief
Plus, the latest trends in local search: personalization and depth of content
Search marketers should remember their power in the Google-SEO relationship
Google’s search engine, as a business, relies on us (in both SEO and PPC) participating in its business model.
Is Google adjusting the FLoC strategy?; Friday’s daily brief
Plus, HTML success factors for SEO
Google rankings fluctuation, pages are dropping and reappearing in the index; Wednesday’s daily brief
Plus, structured data testing tool changes.
Hear me out: FLoC, but as a matchmaking service; Tuesday’s daily brief
And, how to maintain organic performance when merging multiple websites.
How do you plan for in-person consumer behavior and COVID at the same time?; Tuesday’s daily brief
Plus, Google’s math solver guidelines emphasize technical SEO and content accuracy.
Google’s back-to-school shopping tips for local merchants; Monday’s daily brief
And, should advertisers or platforms bear the burden of digital service taxes?
Google’s local ads tips for the back-to-school shopping season
More than 50% of North American back-to-school shoppers say they’ll check for in-store inventory online before heading to a store, according to Google.
Why did Google rank this site? Well, now they’ll tell you; Friday’s daily brief
Plus, how long does your site need to keep redirects?
Why search marketers don’t think a dedicated four-year degree is necessary; Thursday’s daily brief
And, PPC pros, say goodbye to the standalone Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value strategies.
Would your job be easier or more difficult if Google wasn’t the dominant platform?; Thursday’s daily brief
And, we say goodbye to Twitter’s Fleets and Google Posts for knowledge panels.
Google Posts for verified knowledge panels are going away
On July 20, 2021 Google will discontinue Google Posts for knowledge panels. Google My Business Posts are not going away.
Are all the Google algorithm updates too much to handle?; Wednesday’s daily brief
Also, Google talks about search rankings and spam prevention.
Sharing is caring; Wednesday’s daily brief
Plus, Broad Match Modifier goes away in July
Why did Google release all these updates together?; Tuesday’s daily brief
And, the search community mourns the loss of Russ Jones.
What’s the latest in search marketing? Monday’s daily brief
Plus, Google lets searchers know when results aren’t reliable
Google adjusts the timeline for third-party cookie deprecation; Friday’s daily brief
Plus, why thinking like a group isn’t so bad after all
Demonstrating E-A-T: Tactics to implement, and avoid, for greater search visibility
Lily Ray of Amsive Digital shares trends that are common among core update losers and the techniques she uses to help her clients bolster their E-A-T.
Can the industry’s biggest players win over privacy enthusiasts?; Thursday’s daily brief
Plus, Google’s June 23 spam update and Fred Vallaeys answers your top FLoC questions
Ready Player One? We might be closer to the OASIS than you think; Friday’s daily brief
Plus, missed SMX Advanced? Check out the keynote
Google expands GMB profile editing capabilities in Search and Maps
Google is also offering Pointy, a platform that enables local businesses to get their inventory discoverable online, for free to eligible businesses until September 30.
The 2021 SEO Periodic Table is here to help you achieve more visibility; Thursday’s daily brief
Plus, diners are returning to restaurants in record numbers and what that means for local businesses
Google My Business performance report adding driving direction requests and website visits
This is slowly rolling out, you might not see it show up yet in your Google My Business account.
If almost everyone uses Google, does that make it a public utility?; Thursday’s daily brief
Plus, tips for choosing the right event to speak at.
How big and fast was this Google June 2021 core update?; Wednesday’s daily brief
Google cuts short names from Google My Business
Google My Business phases out short names
If your business currently uses short names, the links and campaigns you have associated with them won't be affected.
Unusual start to a Google core update, don’t you think?; Monday’s daily brief
Plus, Moz is sold to iContact
Google removes short names from business profiles, adds new label to local listings and tests new local card
Google is always busy with new features, changes and updates to its local search product.
Is more transparency from Google a good thing?; Wednesday’s daily brief
Also UGC spam, shopping policies, phone calls and more.
Google I/O is next week; expect a lot of new search goodies; Friday’s daily brief
Also an unconfirmed, Google algorithm update, local search features and video SEO.
Some new local search changes you should be aware of; Wednesday’s daily brief
Also, Google updated its event structured data report in Search Console.
Google call history report begins to show data in Google My Business
Several months after showing a "preview call history" feature, Google is now showing some data in this report.
You can now submit HTML directly to Bing via API, surpassing BingBot; Monday’s daily brief
Plus, the rebranding of local businesses for GMB advantage (and why it doesn’t work)
Turn the beat around: Over half a million new businesses opened in Q1 2021; Thursday’s daily brief
Plus, Microsoft Advertising announces new products and features
We’re all in this together: The partnership between marketing and automation; Monday’s daily brief
Plus, the local SEO problem of 1-star, no-comment reviews
Automatic, supersonic, hypnotic, funky fresh; Auto-applied recommendations; Thursday’s daily brief
Plus, the business imperative behind inclusion and diversity
Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s head of search appoints new leads
Elizabeth Reid to lead core search experiences, Cathy Edwards to lead Apps, News Discover and Ecosystem efforts and Sissie Hsiao to lead Assistant.
Yelp introduces a searchable Asian-owned business profile attribute
In February, Yelp searches for Asian-owned businesses were up 130% YoY.