I called it! Google just fixed the bug and department profiles are back, baby! All verticals that are allowed to have departments now have the explicit list of links to the various departments displayed on the primary profile. Check out the video for details...
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Welcome back to another episode of Local Search Tuesdays. This week, I’ve got an exciting update: Department Google Business Profiles are back!
OK, you’re right. That was a bit of a click-baity title. Technically, departments didn’t really go anywhere. Like I mentioned in last week’s video, all of the functionality of departments still existed, it’s just that the primary profile didn’t show the explicit list of links to each department profile.
This popped up about a month ago, and lots of dealers freaked out about it. This wasn’t isolated to automotive, it was a bug that happened for every business vertical that’s allowed to set up department GBPs.
Luckily, between being a Platinum level Product Expert on the Google Business Profile Community Forum and speaking at conferences all over the world, I’ve got several contacts at Google. I reached out to see if anyone could get an answer about the missing department links, and I heard back last Friday that the department links are coming back “soon.”
And it looks like “soon” meant today! As of this morning - I’m shooting this on Wednesday, January 7th - the list of department profile links started to display on the primary business profiles again. Here’s the CDJR dealership near my office: See? The links are back!
Which is awesome for all the businesses that have departments, but was a bit of a pain for me. The first thing I did this morning was record next week’s video, and shortly after that, departments started showing up again. So I had to scrap what I shot and record this instead. Thanks, Google!
Also, please be careful with your departments. I’ve run into a few shady vendors recently who are telling dealerships that they can set up department GBPs for every service they provide, like oil changes, tire rotation, batteries, and so on. That’s absolutely wrong and completely against the rules. Dealerships are only allowed to set up department GBPs for service, parts, and body shop. If you sell multiple brands like Stellantis, you’re also allowed to set up a profile for each brand you sell (although I wouldn’t recommend going that far in most cases). Anything else is against the rules and you risk suspension and lost visibility in search results.
And that’s all the time we have left for this week’s episode, so you know what that means. Put your hand on the screen right here: We totally just high-fived ‘cause you learned something awesome. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you again next week for another episode of Local Search Tuesdays.
