Welcome back to the Local Search Roundup! Weâre going to take a look back at the biggest, and most important updates across local marketing over the last month. As ever, itâs been a busy month. So grab a hot drink and read everything that happened in February 2023.
Google Business Profile (GBP) and Google Maps
GBP Removed Emojis and Special Characters From Business Names
While Emojis in business names arenât something many would recommend in the first place, Google started removing them from GBP in February. Not only that, but they started removing special characters too, like Âź and others.
Source: SEO Roundtable
Many received notifications from Google showing them what their current name was and detailing what the new name would be. While this would make the results more accessible for users, it likely caused issues for many businesses that actually have those characters in their names.
Google Maps Removed Policy-abiding Reviews from Local GuidesâŠ
According to its own Google Local Guides Connect blog, there was an issue with moderation. Their own attempts to avoid spam and policy violations went too far and they removed completely legitimate reviews, including those from Google Local Guides.
⊠Then Reinstated Them
They stated right away that they were working on a fix though, and not long after they reinstated all the Google Local Guide reviews.
Crisis averted!
Updates to the NMX dashboard
Since rolling out the new, and much-maligned, NMX dashboard Google has been tweaking it left constantly.
In February alone each of these was added:
- First up, Google added an âEdit ratesâ option for hotels
New: Another new addition to the in-search experience, now manage hotel booking rates. pic.twitter.com/0e6HlmNtok
— Ben Fisher (@TheSocialDude) February 20, 2023
- Next, they added a âGet Startedâ prompt for the Merchant Center in the NMX to encourage people to list their products on Google Shopping
Google is now prompting users to "Get Started" with the Merchant Center inside the NMX dashboard if you want to "show your online products across Google". pic.twitter.com/GEL7BS8yZL
— Colan Nielsen (@ColanNielsen) February 27, 2023
- Finally, theyâve started adding menu options for other tasks, such as âSee photosâ. We think this one is just a test at the moment.
NEW: Looks like Google Business Profiles have a menu item to go to your photos. (Test) pic.twitter.com/j6usANJTLM
— Ben Fisher (@TheSocialDude) February 18, 2023
The New “Profile Strength” Label
One of these updates to the dashboard was a new âprofile strengthâ meter, that appeared in the top corner. Weâve covered what this means, and why you shouldnât panic if your score isnât at 100, in a guide to the Profile Strength Label.
Business Tab added to Google Maps App
While youâve been able to edit your GBP on the Google Maps app for a long time, theyâve added some functionality on Android to make it easier. Now youâll find âBusinessâ added to the tab at the bottom of the screen. Now you just need to click here and itâll take you to your GBP screen.
GBP Sunsetted the Old Insights API
Finally, and one thatâs been on the cards for a while, Google has sunsetted the GMB Insights API for GBP.
This is specifically the Google My Business Insights reporting API. It went offline on February 20th, 2023. You should have already, but if you havenât you need to update to the new Business Profile Performance API.
Local SEO
Yahoo search is coming back
Just popping in to remind everyone that we did search before it was cool.
BRB making it cool again.
— Yahoo Search (@YahooSearch) January 20, 2023
Ok, ok, this was actually announced right at the end of January, but itâs something you may want to keep an eye on. Yahoo announced they were relaunching their own search engine sometime soon. Thereâs a growing appetite for alternative search engines to Google, so itâs understandable that theyâre considering the move.
John Mueller Says Local Businesses Don’t Need to Worry so Much about Core Web Vitals
Speaking on Mastodon, John said that local businesses, âin most casesâ shouldnât have Core Web Vitals at the top of their list of priorities. This mainly comes down to page experience. Google generally only shows data in Search Console on Web Vitals and Page Experience for âsufficiently popular sitesâ.
This means that small businesses with only a few pages on their websites shouldnât worry too much. John isnât saying to ignore it, but more that you shouldnât focus as much on it as some people do.
New location snippets appearing in Bing
This is currently just a test, but Bing is trying out serving maps within search snippets. At the moment you can only trigger this map within a snippet with specific search queries.
An example of this can be seen with our own brand name below.
Google says embedding third-party local reviews wonât help search rankings
This was another case of John Mueller being asked about a specific ranking factor. On Twitter, he was asked whether embedding reviews from GBP, Bing, or Facebook on your site through an API would provide a benefit.
Not really, at least not for search. Also, if you do that for other reasons, make sure not to use structured data markup on reviews not collected on your site.
— johnmu likes đ„ staplers đ„ (@JohnMu) February 20, 2023
He said that they wonât improve your rankings, and re-iterated previous guidance that any review not collected on your site shouldnât use structured data if you choose to showcase it.
At BrightLocal, we obviously have some thoughts on showcasing reviews. While Google may not use them as a local ranking factor, they provide important social proof and add trust for your potential customers, so don’t ignore them simply because they may not improve your rankings.
The Local Pack Disappeared, for 15 Minutes
Itâs been reported that the Google Local Pack disappeared in its entirety. The good news is that it only happened for about 15-20 minutes. Itâs unlikely that itâs anything to worry about beyond a bug, but as ever, itâs good to be aware of these things.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI seems to be moving at a face pace lately, so there are a few things you should know from the last month.
ChatGPT is going to cost $20
Weâve known that ChatGPT wasnât going to stay free forever. The good news is that the paid version isnât as wallet-busting as originally thought. For now, the premium tier, known as ChatGPT Plus, is $20 a month and gets you access to a couple of features the free tier wonât have, including priority access at peak times.
Google Announced Bard
After all the noise from Bing and Open AI, Google finally announced their own search AI; Bard. Bard itself is a chatbot a little like ChatGPT, but Google is aiming to combine it with their regular search engine, in the way that Microsoft intends to with Bing.
Currently, the main use for Bard appears to be to field informational queries, often without sourcing the answers it supplies. Weâll keep you updated if and when Google gives us any updates on how it could affect local.
Read more: What does AI mean for local SEO?
Test driving Bing
If you want to see how ChatGPT integrates with Bing then Search Engine Land has done a detailed deep dive into how AI will look on the platform that specifically uses local examples.
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