Google My Business has updated its guidelines with new rules and regulations for seasonal businesses.
The new guidelines provide details about setting business hours during off-season months. There’s a new step involved that users should be aware of.
Temporarily Closed During Off-Season Months
If you manage a listing for a seasonal business, it’s now important to have it marked as “temporarily closed” during off-season months.
Previously, the listing could remain “open” during off-season months as long as the business hours were deleted from Google My Business.
Now the entire listing needs to be marked as (temporarily) closed. When the business appears in search results it will have a noticeable red label that says “temporarily closed.”
Marking a Business as Temporarily Closed
Compared to just deleting business hours, there are more steps involved during this new process of closing up for the season.
Google My Business does not allow listings to mark themselves as temporarily closed.
In order to do so, the owner of the listing would have to contact Google My Business support and request the “temporarily closed” setting.
When the business reopens, just set up the regular business hours again.
New Section for Seasonal Businesses
Here is the entire new section about businesses with seasonal hours that was added to Google My Business:
If your business has seasonal hours, use the following guidelines:
- During the season in which your business is open, set your regular hours of operation. You may set special hours for holidays, temporary closures, or other events.
- You can also indicate that your business is open only for a specific seasonal period in your business description.
- During off-season, contact support to have your business marked as temporarily closed. Alternatively, you can mark your business as permanently closed during this period.
- Set your regular business hours when your business reopens.
