Google plans to rename Google My Business to Google Business Profile, and encourage small businesses to manage their profile directly on Search and Maps.

The plan to simplify the process means retiring the stand-alone Google My Business app sometime in 2022.

The existing Google My Business web experience will transition to primarily support larger businesses with multiple locations, and will be renamed Business Profile Manager.

Along with the rebrand, Google has announced several new services to ensure that consumers can locate online merchants that are open for in-store shopping or dining.

Starting this week, merchants can claim and verify their business in Google Business Profile directly on Search or Maps.

This builds on the features launched in August 2020 by allowing merchants to edit their profile directly on Search or Maps, without needing to visit another app or website.

Google also added a new messaging feature in Business Profile. Merchants can message customers directly from Search, which is already available in Maps, and view receipts when messaging on Search or Maps.

Call History launches for U.S. and Canadian merchants to provide a detailed report of the incoming calls they received through the phone link on their Business Profile

In-stock filters in search will become more important during the holidays. This allows consumers to see what is available in specific retail stores.

To ensure products serve up, retailers in the U.S. and Canada can sign up for Pointy from Google, free of charge from their Business Profile on Search.

Pointy helps to automate uploads of in-store product inventory by connecting directly to the merchant’s existing point-of-sale system.

Those with a local inventory feed can submit the feed through Google Merchant Center. To showcase individual products, merchants can also manually add them to their Business Profile on Search.

Merchants that want to focus on store-specific goals, like promoting in-store products or seasonal menu items can promote locations to nearby shoppers using Local campaigns.

In addition, Performance Planner enables marketers to create plans for local advertising investment, and see how changes to those plans might affect outcomes and performance.