Google is testing a new Google My Business (GMB) feature to communicate when a new business will be opening its doors.
A new business can specify its future opening date, and Google can show that listing in the local panel with when the business is opening.
Damian Rollison from Brandify confirmed the Google test with his Google representative and shared a screen shot on his blog:
You can see here, Google added a line that reads “Opens Wed Sep 12” in orange in the local knowledge panel.
After it opened, Google added a “recently opened” label, which is not a new feature:
Damian wrote, “It’s simple enough to supply Google with opening dates for new locations. This can be done by making use of the “open date” field — but for now you can only enter future dates manually in the GMB dashboard. Just how far in the future you can list a new location is still to be determined. And because this is a limited pilot, there’s no guarantee yet that your brand’s listings will qualify for advance publication.”
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Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land’s News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics.