Google posts are an effective way for brands to present their unique marketing messages directly to potential customers. Unfortunately, Google places a considerable restriction on all but the smallest business.
Documented Policy
Here is the official statement from Google
The Real Policy
The only way to absolutely determine if one ore more of your locations are ineligible for Google post management is to determine if each location has been flagged as being disabled.
isGooglePostDisbled = True
How to Determine Status for Individual Locations
LocalClarity presents post eligibility in the Manage Locations section in the detail pane. A blue icon indicates that the specific location is full eligible for all tools for creating, scheduling, editing, and deleting posts individually or in bulk.
A red icon, however, indicates that there is nothing that LocalClarity or any other platform or tools set can do to help your brand/agency take advantage of Google Posts -- at least until Google changes their policy.
How to Determine Status for All Locations in a Profile
Using our GMB Audit, location data for all locations within that profile can be accessed, including the status of post eligibility.
Under the attribute isLocalPostApiDisabled, any value reading TRUE signifies that posts are disabled for that location; Blank values signify that the location is eligible for posts.
Trigger for Chain Designation and Ineligibility
Based on scores of conversations with brands of all sizes, it appears that the chain designation is applied when brands and agencies use Google's tools for bulk verification of locations.
Yes, we realize the challenge here. Google created new tools to help brands manage details in bulk, but by using the available tools brands are blocked from using other tools.
Status is Not Universal
Even the largest brands with hundreds of locations may have a few that are not designation as being part of a chain. We have even seen a brand with 9,000 locations have five that are no disabled. Every client needs to check each location.
Update February, 2020
Unfortunately, this remains a very contentious issues. Google continues to promote Posts as an effective engagement and marketing tool while effectively prohibiting its use by anything but the smallest businesses. Rumors continue to claim that Google will very soon remove the limitation. The next API update is expected in April/May 2020, but there is no expectation for a policy change.
Update March 24, 2020
Great news from Google as a part of their COVID-19 response. Google plans to ignore the chain limitation and allow posts for all businesses. We see this as a major tool for brands that need to provide timely updates to engage (and retain) customers in a crisis.
Posts will be presented in the UPDATES section of mobile search results. See a strong example below.
