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Did Google Just Change the Policy for Solo Practitioners?

Update: Google re-added these guidelines a couple weeks later (April 1, 2016)

Local SEOs rejoiced the day Google came up with the rule for solo-practitioners that indicated locations with only one public-facing professional could combine the listing for the organization and the practitioner.

As of today, I noticed this section completely vanished from the Google My Business guidelines. It’s been completely removed. I’m trying to get a statement from Google on why.

Here is what it said before:

Solo Practicioners

Currently the page has absolutely no mention of solo practitioners or the fact that they should not have a separate page.

Multiple practicioners

I’m praying this is a fluke and Google didn’t actually mean to remove this. More listings is often never what any business owner wants or needs (not to mention it’s often a ranking killer).

Joy Hawkins

Joy is the owner of the Local Search Forum, LocalU, and Sterling Sky, a Local SEO agency in Canada & the USA. She has been working in the industry since 2006, writes for publications such as Search Engine Land, and enjoys speaking regularly at marketing conferences such as MozCon, LocalU, Pubcon, SearchLove, and State of Search. You can find her on Twitter or volunteering as a Product Expert on the Google My Business Forum.

This Post Has 8 Comments

  1. Hi Joy – thank you for sharing. So for a real estate office, 350 agents and 3 or 4 of us who prospect Via SEO – do you suggest that each agents sub page has that : In the header

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