Content by JoyHawkins in December, 2025

It's hard not to be grumpy when Google rewards stupid things but I've been in the industry long enough to know it's much better if you just roll with it and do whatever works and when that changes, just change your tactics with it.

No, that's a really misunderstood guideline. While it's their recommendation, it's not actually a policy that is enforced whatsoever.

So far it wasn't picked up by anyone else. We used the News Guy. They actually recently started sponsoring this forum. The topics of the press releases were all different. One was announcing a new location which was opening. I'd say this is newsworthy as I see lots of news outlets talking...

Only if the service areas overlap. I would make sure none of the service areas on the 2 listings overlap and also that a service area listed on one doesn't match the physical city address of another.

As long as both businesses have permanent exterior signage you should be fine.

Is this the only location for this business?

Saw this announcement from Google about social media clicks showing up in Google Search Console. I have yet to see this on any sites we manage. Have you guys spotted it yet on any of yours?

I just published a video about some tests we did to see if press releases help ranking on Google and the results we got recently were the opposite of what they were several years ago when we tested this. I'd love to hear if you guys are trying press releases for SEO and if you are seeing...

Google actually just announced they are changing it: https://support.google.com/business/thread/392024106?hl=en

Yes it is still true.

No, that is not true. We definitely are instructing people not to post private information on the forum though - so no Google Drive folders containing tons of personal documents.