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Back in August 2017, Google introduced appointment booking URLs to Business Profiles.
(h/t Mike Blumenthal and @Phil Rozek for the amazing archives.
https://blumenthals.com/blog/2017/0...for-appointments-reservations-ordering-ahead/
https://www.localvisibilitysystem.c...ow-about-google-my-business-appointment-urls/)
The rules governing what you can put in that URL field are in Business links policies & guidelines. In the summer of 2025, Google added a section to this document titled “Direct action completion” which states, “Local business links must allow customers to complete the designated action. For example, an "order" link must allow the customer to complete an order.”
By logical extension, an appointment booking link must allow users to book an appointment. But Google doesn’t provide details. Does a link to a contact page where users can contact the business and request an appointment meet this "direct action completion" requirement?
SEOs have long been using this field to buy a little more real estate on their clients’ profiles, and adding a link to the contact page is a really common tactic. To date, it hasn’t been an issue, but that just changed! Earlier this week, we started getting emails from Google letting us know that they removed the booking URL from a number of profiles for not meeting this requirement.
It’s early days for this, which is obvious from the messy email with a badly formatted URL and two periods at the end of the first paragraph.
The email reads “Add a new appointment link or re-upload the original if you believe it was denied or removed in error.” We re-uploaded the original URL on about half a dozen profiles, and a day or two later, they’re still there. (The URL we're using is the contact page.)
Will they stick, or will we be in an endless battle replacing URLs removed by this new automation?
(h/t Mike Blumenthal and @Phil Rozek for the amazing archives.
https://blumenthals.com/blog/2017/0...for-appointments-reservations-ordering-ahead/
https://www.localvisibilitysystem.c...ow-about-google-my-business-appointment-urls/)
The rules governing what you can put in that URL field are in Business links policies & guidelines. In the summer of 2025, Google added a section to this document titled “Direct action completion” which states, “Local business links must allow customers to complete the designated action. For example, an "order" link must allow the customer to complete an order.”
By logical extension, an appointment booking link must allow users to book an appointment. But Google doesn’t provide details. Does a link to a contact page where users can contact the business and request an appointment meet this "direct action completion" requirement?
SEOs have long been using this field to buy a little more real estate on their clients’ profiles, and adding a link to the contact page is a really common tactic. To date, it hasn’t been an issue, but that just changed! Earlier this week, we started getting emails from Google letting us know that they removed the booking URL from a number of profiles for not meeting this requirement.
It’s early days for this, which is obvious from the messy email with a badly formatted URL and two periods at the end of the first paragraph.
The email reads “Add a new appointment link or re-upload the original if you believe it was denied or removed in error.” We re-uploaded the original URL on about half a dozen profiles, and a day or two later, they’re still there. (The URL we're using is the contact page.)
Will they stick, or will we be in an endless battle replacing URLs removed by this new automation?
