The new line added to the Google My Business guidelines reads:
"Businesses can't list an office at a co-working space unless that office maintains clear signage, receives customers at the location during business hours, and is staffed during business hours by your business staff."
In short, this means that virtual office or mailbox-only members may no longer be able to add GMB (aka Google Maps) listings.
For clarity, to be eligible for a GMB listing, member businesses must:
- Have clear signage.
- Be able to accept customers at the location (during office hours).
- Be staffed (during office hours).
At the very least, this will require a change in messaging, rules and guidelines for many virtual office providers.
At the worst, this could deal another blow to coworking spaces (and flex workspace providers) who’ve been leveraging virtual office products to stay afloat during the pandemic and its lockdowns.
Update February 2021:
Google began labelling businesses inside coworking spaces within ‘local pack search results‘. So if executed correctly, member businesses could also become ‘adverts’ of your coworking spaces in this new contextual label.
Hat tips to: Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable, Joy Hawkins at SterlingSky and Stefan Somborac at Marketing Metrology for sharing this before it got to my inbox. Photo by heylagostechie on Unsplash