Create a short name & URL for your business

[sarmcl]

Hi everyone!

We noticed that Google is allowing a short URl & name for GMB but for the life of us we dont know why anyone would do this or what value it would bring. The article from support we found is below. We arent sure when this even happened. Anyone familiar with this? To be clear, we handle enterprise accounts for the most part and not one off businesses.

Create a short name & URL for your business - Google My Business Help

 

[Colan Nielsen]

GMB literally just launched this in the last 24 hours.

Mike did a good post about it that you can check out - Google My Business Rolling Out Short Names

 

[Phil Rozek]

Yeah, the value is unclear. If what's in the URL slug affects rankings, then it'll be abused in a flash, and won't be a net benefit. Not sure about any cosmetic benefits, just because searchers probably won't the the URL in the address bar, even after they've clicked on a listing.

The only possible benefits I can think of are (a) a somewhat-cleaner "Review us on Google" link, and (b) a little more ease in pulling up the correct listing (if you've got more than one) if you need to contact GMB support.

Of course, Google will probably retire this feature after 8 months.

 

[Steven12]

Wow, thanks for the heads up. This is opening up a new little money making strategy. It will become a race to claim the best domain names for small niche businesses, and more GMB's will have to become verified. That's a big goal of "G." (Verification) Don't think for a moment that keywords won't help a little. Most of the 3 Pack has the keyword in there (probably fake) business name as it is. This, I believe, is Google's way to even the playing field. Only active GMB's will even recognize this feature, and they wish to reward activity. The geo+ niche names will go quick. Websites are becoming more and more less prevalent and reviews are dominating the scene. Businesses want phone calls. Customers read reviews and call. It's that easy for most businesses.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

I have to agree with some people in the comments on the post. This is what they did instead of fighting map spam? I mean, just take keywords in the business name out of the picture. How much dev time does that require?

 

[Tim Colling]

Is anyone seeing this option in their clients' GMB listings yet? We have not seen it in any of the ones for our clients.

I know that it's not yet clear whether this short name attribute will have any SEO benefit.

Nonetheless, it's frustrating to not have access to this while it is slowly "being rolled out" and yet they are hammering almost all of our client's GMB listings with the new "POI Establishment" category spam.

 

[Phil Rozek]

I am not seeing it yet.

 

[BenFisher]

Wrote about it in depth here

They will not help much (if at all in ranking) they are pure 301 redirects.
Yes, name squatting will occur, they do have some small preventative measure in place for this though.

 

[Steven12]

Name Squatting? Ben, are you saying, that "G" can take your name from you after buying business cards, posters and coffee mugs to promote your reviews? lol I do know, for a tested fact, that your display URL in Google Ads does help your Quality Score with relevance.

 

[BenFisher]

No, I was more referring to users creating GMB profiles for generic keywords so they can sell GMB profiles. As far as protected business names, there already is a way of reporting a short url in violation.

 

[rustybrick]

Not seeing it yet...