Should I use a GMB Website to get a citation and links?

[nicoco]

I recently came across a couple of articles which suggested to use the free GMB website builder option as a way of creating a solid citation but also a link (or 2) pointing to a fully fledged business website
The idea would be to build the one pager site making sure the copy is different from the main site and ensuring the website link doesn't get switched into the main info panel.

The rational behind it is that google is not going to penalise its own property and it sits on a sub domain business.site , so it's safe.

It sounds very manipulative to me and I am wondering if Google will at some point penalise anyone doing this
Has anyone tried this?
Is there really any value into doing it?

Thanks

 

[Phil Rozek]

There's little or no value in that. If Google recognizes the GMB website as its own property, it also recognizes that anyone can set up one of those. In exactly the same way Google recognizes a link from any other domain as bad, meh, or significant.

Also, the concern in a setup like that isn't what happens to the GMB site, but rather what happens to the business's "mothership" site - the one the GMB site would link to.

I doubt you'd get a penalty, but it'd just be a waste of time. Also, you'd still run the risk of the GMB site getting pulled into the knowledge panel. I've seen that happen a couple of times when it was pretty clear the business owner didn't intend for that to happen.

 

[nicoco]

Awesome! Thanks very much Phil. Much appreciated. AS we always say, if it sounds to good to be true....