Features Temporarily Closed on Google My Business due to COVID-19.

Google will be temporarily closing some of its features in the wake of COVID-19.

Google says,

“During the unprecedented COVID-19 situation, we are taking steps to protect the health of our team members and reduce the need for people to come into our offices. As a result, there may be some temporary limitations and delays in support as we prioritize critical services.”

For the time being, these will be temporarily limited or removed.

Features Include:

Reviews and Q&A:

Google My Business will not be publishing any new reviews, review replies or new Q & A until further notice.

All the existing reviews, review replies and Q & A,s will still be visible.

But any new reviews, review replies and Q & A's will be published only when Google has sufficient resources.

New listings, claims, and verifications.

During this time Google will prioritize the new listings, claims, and verifications for critical health-related businesses.

That being said, with Google prioritizing critical services, other types of businesses will find some delay for publications of new listings, claims, and verifications.

Business information edits:

Google's prioritizing critical services will also extend to reviewing business information edits.

This includes reviews for:

• Changes to open and closed states
• Special hours
• Temporary closures
• Business descriptions
• Business attributes

If your business does not provide critical services it will take some time for your business to get reviewed.

Google posts:

However according to Google, Google posts are still not affected and it will remain functional, though it is unpredictable till when. So make use Google posts to its maximum when it is available.

Source: Search Engine Journal.