Google My Business Update: No More Business Description Field

If there’s one thing we know about Google Products, it’s that their organization and sometimes even their existence (RIP GoogleBuzz) seems to be anything but reliable. Needless to say, Google is at it again!

The once joined-at-the-hip Google+ and Google My Business platforms (since their beautiful digital combination in mid 2011) is now just another divorce for the books, or so it seems. Your Google local profile (aka Google Maps or Google Listings, other things that have changed through the years with Google verbiage) descriptions can no longer be edited or updated via Google My Business. Instead, you can only edit your business description via your Google+ page.

Now this seems confusing because I imagine if you’re like me you’re saying, what is the difference?

Ultimately, the biggest difference is where you click to access the information.

On August 1, 2016 Google wrote:

The Introduction/Description field is no longer editable in Google My Business. It only displays to users in Google+, and may still be edited there. Editing of attributes, coming soon to all Google My Business views, will be an improved way to describe your business to users on Google Search and Maps.

When navigating to your business description on your Google+ profile, you’d generally see your Contact Information with a map, hours, type of business you run, and then a lengthy area to explain what your business does. Skeptics believe this is being removed because businesses have used this area to stuff keywords and turned descriptions into spam.

This description was taken off of the Google Maps and Google local knowledge box a long time ago, but it is still present on your page.

All in all, this isn’t a major update other than another change of verbiage for Google. To edit your Google business description you still go to your Google+ page. The only major difference it seems is that they are no longer referring to your dashboard as a Google My Business portal.

If you don’t have a Google business page and you’re looking for information on how to edit what can be seen about your personal Google+ profile, I can help with that too. Just go to aboutme.google.com to edit your story and privacy settings.