Google announced that it would temporarily remove specific GMB features as a result of limitations caused by the COVID–19 pandemic.
According to reports, 225,991 people are currently infected with Coronavirus. For this reason, companies across the world have recommended that their employees work from home.
For example, YouTube recently reported that it would rely heavily on AI moderation during this period. Similarly, Twitter is also using automation to moderate its platform instead of human reviewers.
To reduce the need for people to come to work, Google has now decided to limit the functionality of Google My Business.
In a blog post announcement, the tech company wrote:
“During the unprecedented COVID-19 situation, we are taking steps to protect the health of our team members and reduce the need for people to come into our offices.”
Expectedly, this could result in some temporary limitations and delays in support.
The search engine company points out that its focus is to produce quality and reliable information on Google Search and Maps.
With that in mind, users should still have access to features such as open or special hours. However, the following features will be temporarily limited or removed.
GMB Features that Are Undergoing Limited Functionality
Here are some of the temporary product changes you should know.
Newly Created Listings, Claims, and Verifications
In its announcement, Google said it would dedicate its support team’s effort to the critical health-related business.
The team will prioritize the review of new listings, claims, and verification for critical services. And this could result in delays in rendering similar services to other non-health-related businesses.
Business Information Edits
Google is prioritizing reviews for edits that are essential to health-related businesses. The search engine giant is also prioritizing the following for other companies. These include:
- Reviews for open and closed states
- Special hours
- Temporary closures
- Business Descriptions
- Business attributed edits
If your company doesn’t provide critical health-related service, you could notice some delays before any edits appear on your GMB listings.
Reviews and Q&A
Finally, Google My Business will not be publishing any new reviews, review replies, or new Q&A during this period. However, the existing ones will remain visible to users.
The presumption is that Google will eventually publish newly submitted reviews, replies, and questions when it has the necessary resources.
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