Google Updates the Guidelines for Seasonal Businesses

Yesterday, Google updated the Google My Business guidelines and has new information for seasonal businesses.

1. Previously they used to tell these business types to delete their hours during off-season months.  Now it says they should contact GMB support to have their listing marked as temporarily closed.
2. They added a note that clarifies the business can set their regular business hours when the business reopens.
3. They suggest using the business description in the GBP to clarify that the business is only open for a specific seasonal period.

What Does Temporarily Closed Look Like?

I added this to my Local SEO training last month because the temporarily closed feature is something I haven’t seen Google talk about in their Help Center (up until now).  The only way to get this feature is to contact Google My Business support and ask them for it.  There is no way to add it in the Google My Business dashboard.  It gives your listing a red label that says “temporarily closed” vs the normal “permanently closed”.

If you’re wondering, why is my business showing temporarily closed on Google, it could be due to your listing being marked as temporarily closed for seasonal reasons. Google suggests contacting GMB support to enable this feature and clarifying your seasonal operating hours in the business description.

The only negative about this feature is that since this is just a search feature, Google Maps doesn’t have this field and your listing will still show as “permanently closed” on Google Maps & in the Google Maps app.

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