CAN YOU MOVE RANKINGS BY ADDING THE GMB SHORT LINK AS THE WEBSITE CONNECTED TO YOUR LISTING?

Our hypothesis is that by replacing the standard website URL with a Google My Business (GMB) short link in a GMB listing, we could influence the visibility and search rankings for specific terms related to the business. We theorized that this alteration might enhance local SEO performance and engagement metrics, such as clicks to the website, phone calls, and direction requests, due to the GMB short link potentially reinforcing the connection between the listing and its relevant search queries. This could be particularly impactful for businesses with exact match brand names that align closely with their target keywords. However, we also consider the possibility that the observed improvements in rankings and engagements could stem from other concurrent SEO activities or the inherent value of the GMB short link itself in signaling relevance to Google’s search algorithm. This experiment aims to explore the extent to which the GMB short link can serve as a lever to improve a listing’s performance in Google’s local search results, with a secondary objective to assess any potential user experience implications of this practice.

We do know that the website connected to the GMB (not the website you make on the GMB listing but the actual website you add to the listing) does move the needle. So we added our GMB short link to the GMB listing as the website. This doesn’t create the best user experience but we were curious anyway. Depending on the results, we may be able to leverage the insights in specific scenarios…

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