Launch: GMB Removing Remaining Distance-based Service Areas

[Colan Nielsen]

Google My Business announced that it has started the process of removing remaining service areas that were based on distance.

Service-area businesses currently based on a distance will be automatically converted to the closest named areas, like San Francisco, CA or Islington, London.

Business owners will be able to review these updates in their Google My Business account under Google updates, and can either accept or provide a new service area. They’ll also receive an email notification about the change.

 

[Tim Colling]

 

[Cherie Dickey]

Thanks for the update Colan!

 

[rustybrick]

Anyone have a before and after screen shot?

 

[Ampere]

I don't understand, can someone explain this like I'm a 5 month old?

 

[Ryanl]

Hello everyone! Newbie! Please tell me if I understand this correctly.

Example: I’m in a city called Buford approx 20 miles north of Atlanta. Are they saying that I will be prioritized in Atlanta or Buford?

Or

I rank ok for some surrounding cities like suwanee and Dacula that neighbor Buford. Will I have the opportunity to rank better in surrounding cities?

I don’t feel the update is super clear.

 

[Ampere]

I am a little different than Ryani. I live in a small suburban town and I advertise to approximately 15 other small suburban towns surrounding me. No single big city, just many small towns that I need work from all of them.

 

[BenFisher]

So, Google started down this path in November of last year. The idea is to remove the radius and use service areas. This is geared toward making SAB's as important as a storefront.

They have given listing owners an ample amount of time to make the change and now this update will force a change to your nearest service area.

As of today... this will NOT help you rank better. Down the road, I think the intent is to help users find you better (ranking) in places you serve.

 

[Ryanl]

So, Google started down this path in November of last year. The idea is to remove the radius and use service areas. This is geared toward making SAB's as important as a storefront.

They have given listing owners an ample amount of time to make the change and now this update will force a change to your nearest service area.

As of today... this will NOT help you rank better. Down the road, I think the intent is to help users find you better (ranking) in places you serve.

Ahhh, that’s what they mean. Yeah they sent an email out a while back. I changed from radius to listing all cities we service. Makes sense now. Thank you for the explanation.

 

[Claire Carlile]

Anyone have a before and after screen shot?

I'd love to see one of these if anyone has one...I don't have any listing with a radius setting and would love to see what it looks (looked!) like

 

[Ryanl]

I'd love to see one of these if anyone has one...I don't have any listing with a radius setting and would love to see what it looks (looked!) like

I tried to get it for you but it's been removed from mine. Sorry!

 

[Claire Carlile]

Thanks so much for looking!

 

[eshad]

Hi Claire,

The picture belows shows what the radius service area used to roughly look like. Not one of my clients as I changed them a while back, but gives an indication.

Thanks

Edward

 

[djbaxter]

Ha ha!

I hadn't checked my "SAB" on Google Maps recently. It now looks like this:

I'm a bit disappointed that it doesn't include the moon and nearby planets.

 

[Claire Carlile]

Thanks so much Edward - that's very useful!

 

[CreativeVision]

So our client had the legacy "serves +10 miles around location" radius setting for London and now we are updating to specific service areas ... so the question is do we add all the (very many) districts that are within London zone (eg Kensington, Islington, Harrow, Chelsea, Westminster, Borough of Camden, Richmond Upon Thames, etc etc and so on, there could be about 50) that are covered by the client or do we just add "London, UK" to get most exposure?

 

[eshad]

For my clients I've been including both the districts and City as a whole. I haven't seen any issues by including both myself and ensures all areas are covered too. If anybody else has had any adverse affects by doing this though it'll be good to hear.

 

[consultant]

So I hadn't logged into GMB since last September. I see all the Review Updates for eliminating the radius search. I'm surprised in this pinned top of the forum thread there's no clear discussion on what specifically happens if you have NOT updated by now?

For my locations, they are all appearing in the same areas with same ranks as they did with radius service areas without me doing anything. So here we are in April 2020. It appears approving the updates for each location will force me to enter service areas. With no change to my GMB visibility on search results, why would I then even waste all that time to manually update all the listings? Seems like Google in the background has done the work for me! Appears they are just wanting me to verify my service areas by re-entering them. Is there any confirmed downside to leaving it as is?