Kara a Google Community Manager announced that Google is doing away with the Google Business profile feature to follow a local listing in Google Maps or Google Search and also dropping the welcome offer feature. There is no date on when this is happening, so it might be happening now or already happened depending on the roll out timing.
Kara said in the Google Business Profile Help Forums "Soon, customers will no longer be able to follow businesses on Google Search or the Google Maps app. You will not be able to send new welcome offers. If you already sent customers a welcome offer, that offer will work until it expires."
I am not sure when "soon" exactly is, but it is soon.
Here is a GIF of these featured from a 2019 blog post from Google:
The follow feature was live in 2018. So I guess it is not getting enough traction and Google is ditching it.
Kara said if you still want to engage with customers you can:
- Share promotions, events, and announcements.
- Get feedback and build trust.
- Hold conversations with your customers.
Forum discussion at Google Business Profile Help Forums.
Update: September 8, 2026 - Dan Boguslavsky wrote in the Google Business Profiles forums, "Notice: Permanent Deletion of Legacy Welcome Offers Data." He added:
2021, we deprecated the Google Business Profile "Follow" feature as well as the ability to create "Welcome Offers". At the time, all welcome offers were unpublished and hidden from consumers. However they were still visible to businesses within the Business Profile post history.
As part of an upcoming system migration to improve our infrastructure, our updated storage systems will no longer support these welcome offers. Consequently, we will be permanently deleting these legacy welcome offers.
What you need to know:
- Action Required: If you wish to keep a record of your past welcome offers, you must download your data via Google Takeout before September 22, 2026.
- Impact: After September 22, 2026, all legacy welcome offers will be permanently removed from your Business Profile post history and will no longer be accessible.
- Other Posts: This change only applies to legacy welcome offers. Your active posts, scheduled posts, and other Business Profile data are not affected by this update.
- Visit Google Takeout.
- Select the data related to your Google Business Profile.
- Follow the prompts to export and download your archive.
