Google My Business: How To Indicate That A Business Is Temporarily Closed

Google My Business allows establishments to strengthen their online presence on Google Search and Google Maps, but above all to transmit real-time information on their activity (temporary closure, exceptional opening, etc.)

How to activate the option “temporarily closed” on Google My Business

Google lets you indicate in your Google My Business listing whether your business is temporarily closed. This information will be visible to anyone looking for your business on Google Search or who wants to get there via Google Maps. You will find below the procedure to follow:

• Log into your Google My Business account
• On the menu on your left, click on Info
• On the right, click on the “Close this establishment on Google” section
• Click on “mark as temporarily closed”

Two other options are also available:

• mark the establishment as closed permanently
• delete the record

How to indicate exceptional opening hours

You can enter exceptional opening hours for days when your establishment is not open as usual, such as on public holidays or in special contexts (Covid-19). Here’s how:

• Log into your Google My Business account
• Click on Profile and select the day concerned
• Enter the corresponding opening and closing times
• Click on OK. To add other exceptional opening hours, click on “Add your hours”
• When you’re done, click “Apply” in the upper right corner of the “Exceptional Hours” screen

Note: if you define exceptional opening hours, your usual hours remain unchanged for all other days. You can only enter exceptional opening hours if you have already set up regular opening hours on your Google My Business page.

Google’s priority: the quality and reliability of information

Google wants to make sure that all property owners have easy access to essential features to indicate whether they are open 24 hours a day, temporarily closed, or have exceptional opening hours.

The options put in place on Google My Business are intended to strengthen the quality and reliability of information from Google search and Google Maps to be able to deal with exceptional situations such as the context of crisis linked to Covid-19.

Google explains that it is possible that some updates to business listings take longer than expected, their workforce being reduced given the current context. The American firm said that health-related establishments will remain a priority.