‘Google My Business' is now called ‘Google Business Profile’. If you used to access your listing on the dedicated Google My Business website, you can still do that for a while, but in the next few months, it will transition to support primarily larger businesses with multiple profiles and will be renamed “Business Profile Manager”.

The BIGGEST CHANGE to GMB is that you can now claim or manage your Business Profile directly on Google Search or the Google Maps app, products we all already use. It can be on your desktop, laptop, tablet or smart phone.

As a precautionary health measure for their support specialists in light of COVID-19, Google My Business will be operating with a limited team for the time being.

The decision was announced in a recent statement: “During the unprecedented COVID-19 situation, we are taking steps to protect the health of our team members and reduce the need for people to come into our offices. As a result, there may be some temporary limitations and delays in support as we prioritize critical services.”

These are the temporary product changes announced by Google:

Google My Business information edits 
Critical health-related businesses will have priority and edits to their listings will be reviewed first.
Also a priority will be given to reviews (for all listings) of the following details in your business profile:

• open and closed states
• special hours
• temporary closures
• business descriptions
• business attributes edits for other verified businesses.

Newly created listings, claims, and verifications
The support team will manually review new listings, claims, and verifications for critical health-related businesses as a priority.
That means you should expect a delay for publication of a new listing, claim, and verification that you might want to do in Google Search and Maps if your business is not a critical health-related one.

Reviews and Q&A
New reviews, review replies, and new Q&A will be unavailable during this time.
I don't think they will get lost, but they will probably be updated once the support team is back at full capacity.

Google Posts still work and are a great way to show your content on the Search platform, but no indication is given if this will be affected in any way now or in the future.

Google is focusing now on the quality and reliability of information on Google Search and Maps. 
Features like whether the business is open or has special hours are considered essential. 

If you have other questions or need help with your Google My Business account, contact me today!