Google is renaming Google My Business to Google Business Profile, as it moves efforts to bringing more of the business profile management out of the Google My Business app and directly into Google Search, Google Maps and those respective apps.
The new name. Google Business Profile will be the new name going forward for Google My Business. Google said the reason for the new name is to “keep things simple” and sometime in 2022, Google will retire the Google My Business app completely.
Another new name you say? We are now calling it Google Business Profile, before that it was named Google My Business, before that, Google Places, and before that it was Google+ Local, before that it was also Google Places and then prior to that I think it was just Google Local. Yes, the local business management product has been through many names, I think I am even forgetting some previous names the product had.
Google My Business going away. What does it mean that Google My Business name is going away? Well, Google is encouraging businesses to manage their single listings directly on Google Search or Google Maps, either via the web interface or mobile apps. Yes, for a long time now, Google lets businesses manage their individual listings directly in the search results or directly in Google Maps, now Google is saying it prefers businesses with single listings manage their businesses in Search or Maps and not in the old Google My Business console.
Google said it that the existing Google My Business web experience will transition to primarily support larger businesses with multiple locations, and will be renamed “Business Profile Manager.” Google will redirect and rebrand the Google My Business web interface, in fact, I personally still use google.com/places to be directed to google.com/business right now.
If you manage multiple locations for your business and/or you are a local SEO that manages a number of businesses, you will still continue to use an interface like Google My Business, renamed to Business Profile Manager going forward. There may be changes to the Business Profile Manager throughout the upcoming months.
New features. Google also announced some new features with this announcement. The new features include:
- Claim and verify your Google Business Profile directly in Google Search and Google Maps
- Call History is officially launching in US and Canada (more details here)
- Messaging can be done directly from Google Search (more details here)
- Message read receipts can be controlled in Google Search and Maps
How do you manage your business. You can either just search for your business name in Google Search or Google Maps for businesses or search for “my business” in Google Search to see the business you have already claimed and verified.
Performance Planner. In addition to this news, Google Ads is enabling you to plan your Local campaign budgets using Performance Planner. Performance Planner is a tool that lets you create plans for your advertising spend, and see how changes to campaigns might affect key metrics and overall performance. This tool lets you see forecasts for your campaigns, explore outcomes by adjusting campaign settings, understand opportunities in seasonal periods and manage budgets across accounts and campaigns.
What it looks like. Here are screen shots of the web interface and mobile app interfaces for these features:
Why we care. Local search in Google is powered much off of the business profiles Google has in Google Business Profile, formerly Google My Business. For now, the web interface is not changing much, outside of branding, but over the coming months, you can expect more and more of the features in the old Google My Business web interface will work directly in Google Search, Google Maps and the respective apps.
Keep in mind, if you follow Google My Business on social and in the help forums, the rebranding will occur there over the next several weeks.
