Google recently announced that it will drop down all Free Business Profile Websites created through its Business Profile platform starting in March 2024. This decision has left millions of small business owners, who took advantage of the free website builder tool under Business Profile, in confusion and concern.
Since its launch as Google My Business and the subsequent rebranding to Google Business Profile, the free platform has been a blessing for small businesses to create an online presence. The most beneficial feature was the ability to create a one-page website to showcase necessary business information. As per Google’s estimates, over 150 million business profiles have been created globally. Even if we assume just 10% of them made use of the website builder, that still leaves 15 million basic websites that will go offline.
For small outfits working on tight budgets, this free tool acted as an online brochure for their products/services and contact information. It enabled customization with branding colors, fonts, layouts, and more. The promise of increased discoverability on Google Search and Maps was an added advantage. While not full-fledged, it did serve the purpose of thousands of mom-and-pop stores, local retail outlets, entrepreneurs, and service providers.
With this exit, small business owners need to explore alternatives to retain their web presence urgently:
In conclusion, small businesses must utilize the one month they still have before the March cutoff to evaluate alternatives and shift their free websites created under Business Profile to avoid disappearing altogether from the internet world. While Google’s decision is disappointing, luckily multiple web hosting providers offer easy tools these days to retain online presence at reasonable costs.
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