With the Covid-19 crisis spreading and affecting all facets of life, there is no shying away from the fact that these are hard times for dentists around the world. Many offices have already been forced to close to stop the spread of the Covid-19.
As always, we’re committed to making sure our customers are kept updated.
On March 20th, Google announced that it was temporarily disabling and limiting several features in the “Google My Business” program:
In a post on the Help section of the My Business, Google stated, “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.“
Google chose to take this step to ensure that health-related businesses can keep patients updated about critical information and mitigate the burden on businesses who are flooded with questions regarding Covid-19.
As a result, Google has removed the following features:
- New Reviews: During this period new reviews cannot be published to Google My Business profiles. Users are still able to post and see their own reviews currently, but reviews are not publicly visible. Google has not stated whether these reviews will be made visible once restrictions are lifted.
- Replies to Reviews: In addition, the replying feature has been disabled. Evidently, there’s less of a need for businesses to be able to respond right now, considering that there are no reviews appearing. Please note, businesses are also temporarily unable to respond to existing reviews on their profile.
- Q&A: Finally, Q&As are completely unavailable currently. This means that all Q&As, including already existing ones, will not be visible and users will be unable to post new questions.
The limited features are the following:
- Adding, claiming and verifying listings: Google’s listing review process is being prioritized for health-related businesses. However, you may experience delays when adding and claiming listings and receiving listing verifications.
Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions. Please maintain safety and stay healthy!