For business owners and marketers who are currently using a Google Business Profile as their website, there is bad news. Google has decided pull the plug on the free website service.
Starting in March 2024, all functionality for the service will be deactivated, meaning you will not be able to edit or update your business profile. However your business profile will continue to be visible until June 10th. After this date, visiting your Google Business Profile URL will result in a 404 error page.
The Risk: Was Never Your Site to Begin With
This risk was always there. When you build your website or profile on a 3rd party platform, you truly do not own your own website or content. It can be taken down at any time the website owner chooses to. Since you built your website on a Google-owned platform and URL, Google has the right and power to take it down whenever it chooses to. This applies to any other 3rd party service, including content creation and social media sites, such as YouTube, Twitter (X) or Instagram.
How Your Business is Affected by This Shutdown
- Your business profile content will eventually be removed permanently from Google’s database, so be sure to make a copy of any content you want to save.
- Domains that end with business.site and negocio.site will be removed from the website field on your Business Profile in March.
- Any links pointing to your business profile. Make sure to update the links on your social media, business directory or articles on 3rd party sites.
- Advertisements for your business. Make sure to pause those ad campaigns while you’re getting the new domain and website setup.
Solutions
- We recommend you register your own domain name and build your own website with your own hosting. This way you will own your own domain name and website content.
- There are other free hosted website builders out there that you can use to build a new site, but again you truly don’t own your content. Also the domain name will not be your own unless you upgrade to a paid service. Here are some free hosted website builders:
- SquareSpace
- Weebly
- Wix
- WordPress.com
- GoDaddy
- Shopify
- Google Sites
Need help setting up a new website with your own domain name and hosting? We can get it set up for you for a reasonable price. You can own your own custom domain name and website files with database. Contact us to discuss.
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