{"id":15608,"date":"2019-07-16T14:16:03","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T01:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pureseo.co.nz\/?p=15608"},"modified":"2019-12-02T15:39:10","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T02:39:10","slug":"short-names-causing-google-my-business-listings-suspensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pureseo.com\/nz\/blog\/short-names-causing-google-my-business-listings-suspensions","title":{"rendered":"The Case of the Missing GMB Listings: Short Names Causing Suspensions and More"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A few months ago, Google made it possible for users to create customised short names and short URLs specifically for their Google My Business listings. This feature came with a lot of praise from the Google community, as it serves as a sort of replacement for the \u2018Goo.gl\u2019 URL Shortener tool that was shut down last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While all that sounded great, recently there have been some pretty heavy rumours stating that the feature is causing huge implications for businesses using it. We decided to investigate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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What is a Short URL?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Short names and short URLs are easy-to-remember names for business profiles that can help GMB listings to be accessed directly through the Google My Business platform. It means that businesses can promote their GMB listing to customers in a way that can easily be recalled and presented in marketing material. They can be accessed by going to the URL \u2018g.page\/[yourshortname]<\/strong>\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Short names can be up to 32 characters, and they are\nimplemented in the \u2018Info > Add profile short name\u2019 section of your Google My\nBusiness Menu. They can be changed, but only up to 3 times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google has published a help centre<\/a> article to aid businesses with implementing these short URLs. This also shows us that they are going to be around for good, rather than a temporary or Beta feature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the feature initially came out, there were many reports of businesses not having access to it, despite Google saying it was available to all verified GMB businesses. This is interesting, as it was the first of many hiccups to come for short URLs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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What\u2019s Happening to Businesses Implementing Short URLs?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It seems that this feature has had a bumpy introduction ever since it was released, as it has recently become apparent that businesses who have added these short names have had their actual business listings suspended <\/strong>and removed from SERPs<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe Youngblood has been keeping everyone up to date on Twitter about the situation. It seems apparent that this has not in fact happened to all businesses implementing a short name, and is instead occurring at random. One thing is for sure, though, removing the short name will reinstate the businesses original ranking positions<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are plenty of businesses who this hasn\u2019t affected, one SEO specialist named Mike Friedman commented on the Facebook page \u2018SEO Signals Lab\u2019 that suspension had occurred to only 2 out of a dozen clients. The businesses it affected were 100% legitimate with no spam and did not have any visible differences from his other listings when it came to quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Local SEO PSA:

Not sure how true this is as I cant test it. pic.twitter.com\/9gAWysCogg<\/a><\/p>— Joe Youngblood – SEO, Futurology, AI, Marketing (@YoungbloodJoe) July 5, 2019<\/a><\/blockquote>