Posted by 
After my column about Home Service Ads came out last week, I got a message from Google with some great news. They told me two things:
- Google plans to add pure service-area businesses (SABs) back into the local results — this includes home-based businesses.
- The disappearance of results for home-based businesses in markets without Home Service Ads was due to a bug (not intentional), which Google says should be resolved soon.
So, almost a year after deciding to remove service-area businesses from the local results, I’m starting to see that Google is adding them back.
[Read the full article on Search Engine Land.]
Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.
About The Author
Joy Hawkins is a Local SEO expert who is a part of Google’s Top Contributor program & MapMaker Regional Leads program. She regularly contributes to many online communities in the Local SEO world, including the Google My Business forum (Top Contributor), the Local Search Forum (Top Contributor), and the Local University Forum (Moderator). She also a contributor to the Moz Local Search Ranking Factors survey. Joy currently works as a product consultant at Imprezzio Marketing in Toronto. She also loves to blog on her own time about things pertaining to Local SEO.