It appears to me that Google may be testing allowing Google My Business posts to get indexed in the search results. Previously, the Google My Business posts have not been getting indexed in Google’s search results. However, it appears that a limited number of them (about 3,100 of them) are getting indexed. I’m not sure if this is Google testing certain posts and allowing a limited number of them get indexed–or if it’s a mistake. From what I can tell, though, it appears to be a limited test of about 3,000 GMB posts.
Here’s an example of the posts in the index:
The site: command, along with the beginning of the URLs (https://search.google.com/local/) will show the pages indexed.
Some of these posts that are appearing in the search results right now have been posted a while back, longer than 7 days ago. Which makes me wonder… most likely it’s a test.
It’s interesting to note that these pages are on HTTPs, which is different than the business.site web sites, which are not on HTTPs. Also, the posts that are indexed are mostly from outside the USA. Previously, when Google did testing with the business.site web sites, I recall that they did it with non-USA local businesses first. So, if that’s any indication, we may, at some point get all of our Google My Business posts indexed. I have done some testing to see if I can get a new GMB post crawled and indexed–but no such luck yet. So, this may just be a test.
If you are a local business and have a Google My Business listing, you can write short blog posts (up to 300 words) through your Google My Business dashboard and by using the Google My Business app. You can link out to an offer or to a web page (typically on your web site). Posts expire after 7 days.
You can find the URL of your Google My Business post by going to the post itself and clicking the Sharing icon at the top right of the popup. You’ll then be able to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and email. Then, they give you the URL of the post.
Even though these posts currently expire every 7 days, I do think Google should allow these posts to get indexed. In 7 days, I’ll know what happens to that URL when the post is gone. Hopefully they’ll redirect to your GMB listing or list of posts, but it also might be a 404 error.
