Have you registered your company or shop with Google My Business yet?

Google My Business is a service that lets you list information about your shop or company on Google Search and Google Maps.

It's free and easy to set up, and it displays your information in a very prominent position when users search on Google, so there's no reason not to register.

↑ Right here. You've surely seen it before.

If you've seen it when searching yourself but haven't registered, you should do so right away.

That's because yesterday I attended a seminar Google held for partners, and the instructor who spoke there said something like this.

"You should register with Google My Business as a measure to prevent brand copying."
"Just having it is meaningful."
"Countermeasures are essential in case you're targeted by hostility or malice."

Certainly, as mentioned earlier, it's free, easy to register, and lets you make your presence known to users, so registering is clearly to your advantage.

But beyond that, he recommends registering because of cases like the following.

Someone registered with Google My Business under the company name "Merci Co., Ltd." (a pseudonym).
A while after registering, a listing for "Merci Co., Ltd." (pseudonym) began appearing on Google Search and Google Maps.

Google My Business has a "Reviews" feature, essentially word-of-mouth comments.
Anyone with a Google account can post. Getting a Google account is free, just like Google My Business, so with only an email address it's possible to impersonate others or create multiple accounts.

Negative comments piled up in the reviews on the business listing for "Merci Co., Ltd." (pseudonym).
When staff at Merci Co., Ltd. noticed this and asked Google to remove them, Google refused, saying it could not judge whether the reviews were true or false, and those negative reviews continued to remain online...

That's right: this business listing for "Merci Co., Ltd." (pseudonym) and the flood of negative reviews were registered and posted by a rival company, which took advantage of the fact that the real Merci Co., Ltd. had no business listing of its own.
Truly frightening.

This brings us to the title of this article.

For companies that haven't registered with Google My Business, the situation is actually a minus, before you even get to "helping attract customers."
It's no exaggeration to say that you remain exposed to the risk of unintended information or negative reviews being posted about you.
By the time you think, "Darn! I should have registered it myself back then!" it's already too late.

I'm not a Google agent or anything, lol.
I just recommend taking action before you come to regret it.