Google Business Profile Updates

What these changes are about and why

If you haven’t checked your Google Business Profile for a while, prepare for significant changes. Google has recently released a set of GBP updates known as the New Merchant Experience In-SERP. Google had been releasing these updates over a few months in 2022 and notably changed Google Business Profile listing and a new user-interface standard by the end of 2022.

The New Merchant Experience was released in response to the changing nature of shopping behavior in the digital age. With more and more customers turning to online shopping, businesses need to adapt to stay competitive. One of the key benefits of the New Merchant Experience In-SERP is that it allows businesses to showcase their products directly in Google Search results, providing customers with a more comprehensive shopping experience. Previously, customers would have to navigate away from the search results to find detailed product information, which could be time-consuming and frustrating.

However, all of these changes are being made by removing the Google Business Profile dashboard that seriously changes users' behavior. Thus, if editing directly in search engine results page is nothing new, removing the Google Business dashboard is. In some opinions, Google Business Profile is being turned into some sort of social media profile specifically for local businesses in order to improve their rankings with local SEO and customer reviews, but simultaneously making it harder to manage for multi-location businesses.

Opinions about these changes are polarized and customers might also get confused about what to do and how to manage listings. In this article, we will analyze and explain that for you.

What has been changed exactly and how it has been changed

There are a lot of updates, so we will structure it into two groups and make it easy for you to process that information We’d like to start with the major changes as they might affect businesses the most.

No Google Business Dashboard. The biggest and arguably the most crucial change is the loss of the ability to work within the dashboard. From the inception, most features were available via the Google Business Profile dashboard. Over time, Google started adding some of that option in the SERP and from now on the SERP will be the only option where those features will be available.

The new interface is called Merchant Panel and there you can see the main menu, cards, three-dot menu, and your Business Profile in the right corner
That’s also important to highlight, that the display of the Merchant Panel depends on the business categories. So, what you will see might be different from business to business and from industry to industry.
New Settings. Heaps of Google Business Profile Functions are hidden in 3 dots. So, let’s take a look at what there ->

There is the following information included:

Advanced setting with ID profiles, store codes, labels, etc.
Notifications that allow users to work with different communication channels, such as customer reviews/messages, Q&A, Bookings, etc.
A possibility to add, remove and edit profile managers. The same applies to business profiles.
Manage linked accounts
That’s also interesting to pinpoint that some settings might still send users to the old dashboard. However, that’s inconsistent and most likely will not be left like that. With that being said, it’s better to get used to the new dashboard.

Some old features are gone. There is also a list of features that are no longer with us. Among them we can highlight the following:

Photo insights. This data had been often criticized for being unreliable and inaccurate. The Photos Insights are no longer available in the GBP API and if they are going to be reintroduced in the future is still unclear.
The second feature that is no longer available is “how customers search for your business” meaning that the pie chart (which is also attached below) that shows searches for your business within 3 groups (direct, discovery, and branded visits) is no longer available.

Minor Changes

There are also some minor changes where we could highlight the following:

Google “posts” in the dashboard are labeled as “updates”.
Google has re-labeled “users” that are now referred to as “managers.” That also shows the change in how Google sees Google Business Profile and that they probably want to give more power to users
Location information. Some businesses used that feature in order to track seasonal spikes and that will also no longer be available.

Conclusion. What should be expected?

All of these changes are leading to the change in Google’s attitude towards Google Business Profile. With the loss of the dashboard and even re-labeling of “users” to managers, Google shows that it wants to give more power to smaller businesses. However, it makes the management process significantly harder for multi-location companies.

We will definitely recommend businesses do the following:

Adjust to it as the new normal. If you like or dislike the new interface, start getting used to it. Google will definitely work with that interface from now on. Some of the old features are still available, but Google will sooner or later get rid of them.
Glitches might happen. Due to a lot of changes, some features could not be working as they suppose to. That’s not critical, but on average happens more often than at other times. If you see something weird happening while you’re working with your Google Business Profile, just reach out to Google Support or to someone who’s managing your listing.
Play around with the new interface. Even if you have nothing to update at the moment - still play around with the new interface. Thus, you will be ready and feel more comfortable about the new interface in the future.
Hire an agency to manage listings. If you run a multi-location business the new interface makes it significantly harder to manage all of the listings by yourself. Agencies might not only manage it for you but also provide additional features, such as Competitive Analysis and Semantic Analysis and we at Geojet could do just that.

You might have not a positive view of the current Google Business Profile changes. However, if it’s a good or a bad update - only time will tell. For now, we recommend businesses play around and get acquainted with that or get in touch with some agencies that will explain to you listing management in all details. And we at Geojet could definitely provide that 🙂