For
the upcoming holiday shopping season, Google is going a step beyond its
usual practice of displaying business hours in Maps and Search. This
year, the company will specify holiday hours for businesses — at least
for the ones that publish them online.
“When you search for a business
and a major holiday is within the next seven days, you’ll see whether
the business has a special holiday schedule," Jonathan Sidi, Maps’
product manager, wrote in a blog post today.
"If you search for a business and the holiday hours aren’t listed,
you’ll see a warning message alerting you that the actual hours may be
different because of the holiday.”
Holiday
hours are available globally, according to Google, making it easier to
find a restaurant or store that’s open by filtering Maps results to show
only businesses that are “open now.” The hours will be displayed across
both the desktop and mobile versions of Maps and Search.
