To help businesses celebrate their owners’ diversity, Google Maps is getting a new LGBTQ+ owned attribute that will appear on the about tab.
This entirely optional attribute that businesses can assign themselves comes in just before the end of Pride month so that patrons and owners can better find local queer-friendly spots and celebrate their neighborhood’s diversity.
Right now anyone in the US with a verified Business Profile on Google can add this new attribute with a few simple steps:
- Go to your Business Profile and hit Edit profile
- Under Business Information look for the More tab near the top of the page
- Once here, select the category you want to change and set the attribute to either Yes or No
- If everything is set up correctly, hit save and your business’ Google profile will be updated
The new attribute should help make LGBTQ+ owned businesses more visible to people not familiar with the local area. It will allow patrons to better find and support these venues and give owners a new forum to highlight their business as a safe space for members of the queer community.
The new LGBTQ+ owned tag joins the Black-owned, Latino-owned, veteran-owned and women-owned options business already had available through Google Maps.
Businesses are able to use multiple attributes at once to celebrate their diverse ownership
Searching through the about tabs on all of the nearby businesses will be tough though, so thankfully there’s any easier option. To find any venue in your local area that’s tagged with one of these attributes you can type LGBTQ+ owned (or one of the others) into the Google Maps search bar and businesses that self-describe as this will be highlighted.
Like with a lot of its new features, this new LGBTQ+ tag option on Google Maps is currently only available to businesses in the US. We expect that it will roll out to other territories in the not-too-distant future, but we’ve reached out to a Google representative to get confirmation.
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