GMB Short Names - Are they important?

[KristiSimone]

Hi, everyone. What do you think of Google Short Names? What do you think Google will be doing with these? Thanks!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi @KristiSimone They are important enough to create/claim them. It's worth the effort because:

1. It's an easy and effective way to show-off your GMB profile to potential customers. You can include the short name URL in email marketing campaigns, emails signatures...etc
2. Your competitors could grab your branded short name url before you do. We saw this happen recently
3. As with most GMB features this is likely just the minimum viable product and they will be building on its functionality

 

[UKSBD]

As with most GMB features this is likely just the minimum viable product and they will be building on its functionality

Do we know yet what other parameters Google are using?

Only 3 I've seen so far;

name/ - goes through to listing on map

name/review - goes to reviews

name?share - goes through to listing on map, but doesn't appear to do anything else (yet)

Do we know of any others yet and what they do?

 

[KristiSimone]

Hi @KristiSimone They are important enough to create/claim them. It's worth the effort because:

1. It's an easy and effective way to show-off your GMB profile to potential customers. You can include the short name URL in email marketing campaigns, emails signatures...etc
2. Your competitors could grab your branded short name url before you do. We saw this happen recently
3. As with most GMB features this is likely just the minimum viable product and they will be building on its functionality

Thanks, @Colan Nielsen. This makes a lot of sense. It will be interesting to see how this develops over time.

 

[KristiSimone]

I actually have a continuing question about Short Names.

As we are adding them, Google seems to be recommending names that sometimes include the - and sometimes don't.

Have you seen this? Just trying to figure out the protocol

Examples:
Grove City Center for Dentistry recommended short name is GroveCityCenterForDentistry

Brilliant Smiles Xenia recommended short name is Brilliant-Smiles-Xenia

Thanks!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Personal I think the URL without the (-) is superior from an aesthetic perspective.

 

[Tim Colling]

Right now it seems as though adding a shortname may trigger a suspension of the listing. Be careful.

 

[officialryguy1]

Right now it seems as though adding a shortname may trigger a suspension of the listing. Be careful.

Do you have any more information on this, Tim? I had a suspension happen on an account of mine. 2 out of 13 locations received a suspension, and I am now seeing that I applied short codes a day prior to the suspension, but didn't think about the two being related in anyway.

 

[Tim Colling]

It's being talked about actively on Twitter and @JoyHawkins was quoted in one of the online SEO news sites this morning, saying that she was checking into the reports.

I can say this: I've added shortnames to a number of my client sites. Two of them were immediately suspended for "quality reasons" and I'm not certain whether the shortname additions were the only changes that I made at that time.

 

[JoyHawkins]

There is a lot more information about it on this thread.