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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).

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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 Business Profile Forum.

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This Post Has 16 Comments

  1. I’m very interested in this as well… I have several clients who need to know what Google’s suggested “best pratice” is.

    Reply

  2. Wow, that is a significant discovery on your part. Thank you for posting this, Joy. I look forward to any updates and will update any of my discoveries.

    Reply

  3. I’m very interested in this as well… I have several clients who need to know what Google’s suggested “best pratice” is.

    Reply

  4. Wow, that is a significant discovery on your part. Thank you for posting this, Joy. I look forward to any updates and will update any of my discoveries.

    Reply

  5. Yikes! That’s a significant change (if it IS a change) to the guidelines. Thanks so much for the heads up. I’ll be watching this closely to see what unfolds.

    Reply

  6. Yikes! That’s a significant change (if it IS a change) to the guidelines. Thanks so much for the heads up. I’ll be watching this closely to see what unfolds.

    Reply

  7. 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

    Reply

  8. 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

    Reply

  11. Looks like they’ve added the missing section back – thankfully I don’t see any change in policy!

    Reply

  12. Looks like they’ve added the missing section back – thankfully I don’t see any change in policy!

    Reply

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