Blog / Google My Business30 August 2019

Why is it not worth deleting old posts in Google My Business?

Posts in Google My Business have been introduced some time ago, and we have already got used to them. While a significant part of business owners still ignores this feature, every day more and more companies are realizing the undoubted benefit, which these posts on Google Search and Maps could bring them.

What’s the problem?

One disappointing thing about posts is that they "live" for 7 days, then they disappear from the card and remain hidden. Even editing doesn't help here: the post will be modified, but still not will get back to your company profile.

It often seems that such a term is quite short and not enough: hardly all users have read the post and the topic may still be relevant. So many owners are tempted to delete an obsolete post (because it is already invisible and supposedly anyone does not need it), copy its content and publish it one more time. And you don't need to come up with new topics!

Not so long ago we also used to do it. However, in today's realities it turns out that the removal of the old posts doesn’t bring you any benefit, and moreover – it can be harmful. Why? Let's try to understand.

Quick Reference: What are Posts on Google?

Posts on Google are owner's publications that appear at the bottom of the business profile (in the Knowledge Panel or Maps). They allow you to report information directly to customers through a search engine.

There are four types of posts that are available each time you create a new post.

  • Update (What's new) is the simplest text-only option (up to 1500 symbols), containing a single image or video, and a CTA button with a link. Such posts are suitable to share company news, helpful information, or give an advice to clients.
  • Product is a post consisting of the name of the product, its description, photo or video, a separate price window and CTA buttons. As the updates, products remain visible for 7 days. This format is required to tell customers about a new product or a whole new collection. You should not confuse this type of posts with the Products section of your company profile: it has a different structure and remains on the business card all the time.

Example of a news post (left) and a product one (right)

  • Offer is a convenient format for placing promotions or giveaways. In addition to the name, photo, button with link and description (up to 1500 symbols), there may be the terms of an offer, also a bonus code and a sitelink to activate it. It remains visible until the day that you set as the end date for the promotion.
  • Event is a kind of post in which you can share any event. Thus, it is possible to provide its name, description, links for more details, as well as the date and time of its holding. Such post will be visible on the profile till the date you choose.

Example of an offer post (left) and an event one (right)

Now, when we know all post types, it becomes clear: it hardly makes sense to delete offer or event and post it again, because you can adjust the duration of its life as you need. Therefore, we will focus primarily on updates and products that remain visible only for a week.

Two things you should know

For a further insight of our article, we would like to say about two changes that have occurred in GMB not so long ago. The first of these, which took part in the middle of 2018, disappointed the community a little bit. A section with posts was moved down on a company's profile, which resulted in a general decrease of CTR and effectiveness of these publications.

On the left – posts position in the business profile until mid-2018; on the right – what we have now

On the other hand, at about the same time, "Show Previous Posts" or "Show All" buttons (see screenshots below) appeared on company profiles. This button appeared next to the current posts (or instead of them, if there is none of such posts). Since then we know: "expired" posts in fact do not disappear. They remain available not only to the owner in the control panel, as it always has been; users can also see posts by clicking on the button we have mentioned. After clicking, they can see all posts, that have ever been posted by a company, in chronological order. Of course, except those that were forcibly removed.

On the left – "Show All" button, which appears when the business still has current posts; on the right – "Previous Posts" link, when no such posts are available

“Overdue” posts: are there any benefits?

Ever since we started working at GMB posts at Arto Web Agency, we've been practicing to delete and reshare them. It was convenient from two positions: first, news or products for a current season were permanently attached to the profile as long as needed; secondly, there was no need to come up with topics for new posts if old ones were still relevant. In addition, at that time the business profiles did not yet have a "Show All" button, so users could not view expired posts.

However, then we noticed an interesting trend: if you do not delete the old post and watch its statistics, you can see it continues to receive a significant number of views, and often – even some clicks on the link! Is a large percentage of users not just click on the inconspicuous "Show All" button, but also flip through a line of old posts, and someone navigate from there to the site? At first it seemed like something fantastic.

As you can see in the screenshot, the last post by these company was made more than 2 weeks ago, but posts continued to receive views (80 for last week)

Over time, we made a suggestion about what can cause such performance. Approximately at the beginning of 2019 Local Pack started to show the highlighted keywords from posts, that matched user's search request. You can also find a new "Similar to your search" section on the Maps, where also the posts are shown (look at the screenshots lower).

This is how the keywords in the post look in Local Pack

And here you can see posts related to the search term – they are displayed at the top of the profile

It is important that in this way the user can seen not only current posts, but also the "overdue" ones. Views and clicks can come from here. For example, suppose that a customer searches for "tire fitting in Kyiv" on Maps and sees a car service station profile that immediately displays a post about this service and a "Sign up" button. It is likely that he will click on the post more willing than anyone who just reads about the same service station in a Knowledge Panel.

Disadvantages of deleting posts

  • We have already called the first of them indirectly: now any post, even put in the hidden section, still fulfills the task for which it was created. It is being reviewed by users and drives traffic to the site. It's just not happening in the Knowledge Panel (mostly branded search), but in the local search results too (non-brand requests), which may be even better in terms of attracting new customers.
  • Both foreign studies and our experience show that posts can have a moderate impact on profile's ranking in Local Pack and Maps. Every post, even a very old one, can affect the ranking for keywords that appear in it. So now, to our minds, it is in the company’s best interest to accumulate the base of such publications rather than delete them.
  • Also, our observations show that sometimes the growth of positions of the company's profile by queries, which appear in the post, does not begin immediately. The growth may occur even some time after the post is no longer displayed on the profile. This is just an assumption, but maybe Google analyzes the number or frequency of post's views and clicks on it? After all, this may be a signal that it is really relevant to the topic and interesting to customers. Thus, a post that has already garnered a certain amount of user interactions may be considered "more authoritative" than one that was just published.
  • The feed of posts on Google now resembles a primitive social network. In the US, this trend has moved even further: customers can already subscribe to their favorite companies' profiles. We do not burden ourselves with removing old posts from the company’s Facebook page. Let the posts at GMB be kept "for history" too.
  • Removing an old post will cause losing its statistics, which may be interesting to compare later. Unfortunately, Google does not currently provide detailed statistics on how many views and clicks a post received on a certain day, but this can be fixed by checking the numbers regularly.

When can you think about deleting?

  • When some posts are completely out of date. Many companies have posts that they want to repeat every year or every season, such as a reminder of a fall or spring change of tires of car service, or an offer for a summer or winter vacation from a travel company. It is often the case that the service has changed since last year: the range has expanded, prices have increased, new conditions have emerged, etc. So the question is: can information in old posts be misleading? It will not be very nice if customers see last year's post with outdated prices. It may be better to delete or edit it.
  • If the audience is well acquainted with your brand and often searches for you by the name of the company, and not by requests such as "buy X in Kyiv". In this case, users will often see your card in the Knowledge Panel, and it may be really important to have valuable, relevant information displayed in the posts section. If you have such posts, then publishing them again may be the right decision. However, if possible, try posting them as offers or events to extend their visibility.
  • Absence of reasons for new publications. Sometimes it seems that there is simply nothing to write, but at the same time the topic of the old publication remains relevant, so it can be re-posted. However, keep in mind that you can leave the old post: you may want to update some text, change the photo, or write a new post on the same topic, but leave the previous one. This will be more useful for the reasons described above.

Do not be afraid to experiment in search for topics for new posts: it is not necessary to write about something new or seasonal, you can talk about products and services that are relevant throughout the year; a post about a new collection can be expanded, for example, with a post about the specifics of choosing products or care of them. Then perhaps the problem of "nothing to write about" will occur less often.

Conclusions: Best Practices

To sum up, there are some tips for posts that we think are relevant right now.

  • Try not to delete old posts. As we can see, they are useful both in terms of ranking and to attract users.
  • Delete posts only when they contain outdated information that may mislead the client. If there is not a lot of such information, you can also edit the post. This feature is always available in the GMB control panel, even for "expired" posts.
  • Resubmit a post only when you understand that its subject matter remains important to users who see your card in the Knowledge Panel: for example, important company news, relocation information, change of entry, and more.
  • If you decide to republish the post, consider editing, supplementing, or writing another post on a related topic. This will be more interesting for regular clients and more useful in terms of semantics.
  • To extend the "lifespan" of posts, design them as promotions or events – of course, if it looks natural for the topic you choose.

One last thing: make posts regularly. In our experience, the optimum number is 1 new post per week. On the other hand, you don't need to make too many posts: for today, because of their location at the bottom of your business profile, they don't get as many clicks, and even active users are unlikely to read anything you publish.

Nikolay Ashpin
SEO, blog editor
I have been engaged in copywriting since 2014, in SEO - since 2017. I am interested in Internet marketing modern trends and search engine optimization, as well as in the capabilities of the Google My Business tool, and I share the experience of using it at seminars and conferences. If you have a question about this article, please write to nikolay@arto.agency.

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TAMARA SIMIC
20 November 2019, 18:59
Thanks a lot.
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