Auto-Publish to Google Business Profile (GMB Poster) vs Auto Publish for Google My Business

GMB Poster turns your WordPress posts into a steady stream of Google Business Profile (GBP) updates. New posts join a queue, the scheduler picks a slot from your cadence, and at slot time GMB Poster either: Auto-publishes the post directly to your GBP location via the official Google Business Profile API (v2.0+), or Prepares the caption, image and tracked link and hands it off to you for a one-click publish in the GBP web interface (the original semi-manual mode). You pick the mode in Settings. You can switch any time. Auto-publish (recommended, v2.0+) Create a free Google Cloud project, enable the My Business APIs, paste your OAuth Client ID + Secret into GMB Poster Settings. (Step-by-step guide is built into the setup wizard.) Click Connect Google account — Google’s consent screen opens, you pick the Google account that manages your GBP, click Allow. Pick your GBP location from the dropdown. Flip the Auto-publish toggle on. From then on, every time a queued post hits its scheduled slot, GMB Poster posts it directly to your GBP location automatically. Posted items show a green “Posted” pill and the Google post ID. Failed items show a red “Failed” pill with the Google API error and a one-click Retry publish button. Why “per-install” OAuth credentials? GMB Poster never embeds a shared Google client — that would leak the same OAuth secret to every installation of the plugin on WP.org and risk Google revoking it for everyone. Instead, each install uses its own free Google Cloud project; the OAuth Client Secret and the refresh token are stored encrypted-at-rest in your WordPress database using a key derived from your site’s AUTH_KEY constant. Semi-manual mode (original) If you don’t want to set up a Google Cloud project, the original semi-manual handoff still works: New WordPress posts are added to the GMB Poster queue automatically (configurable per post type and category). The scheduler picks a posting slot using either time-of-day slots or a cooldown window. When a slot is due, the next item appears in your Dashboard widget and on the GMB Poster Queue screen. Click Prepare & open GBP. GMB Poster: copies the formatted caption to your clipboard, downloads the featured image to your computer, opens your GBP composer in a new browser tab. In GBP: paste the caption, drop in the image, set the call-to-action, click Publish. Click Mark posted back in WordPress. Features Auto-publish to Google Business Profile via the official Google API (v2.0+), with a built-in setup wizard Per-install OAuth 2.0 credentials — your secret + refresh token are encrypted at rest in your WordPress database Semi-manual mode preserved as a fallback for installs that don’t want a Google Cloud project Custom queue with statuses: Pending → Ready → Prepared → Posted (or Skipped / Failed) Time-of-day slots OR cooldown-hours cadence, with optional weekend skipping Auto-queue on publish, filterable by post type and category Per-post opt-out checkbox in the editor sidebar Dashboard widget showing the next item ready to send “Publish now” / “Retry publish” buttons per row when auto-publish is on UTM-tagged Learn-more links (utm_source / medium / campaign configurable) Featured image → GBP image, title + excerpt → caption, permalink → call-to-action Translation-ready Disclaimer This plugin is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Google LLC. “Google” and “Google Business Profile” are trademarks of Google LLC. External services GMB Poster communicates with the official Google Business Profile API when (and only when) you’ve connected a Google account and turned on Auto-publish: Google OAuth 2.0 (https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/v2/auth, https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token, https://oauth2.googleapis.com/revoke) — used to obtain, refresh and revoke the access token GMB Poster uses on your behalf. My Business Account Management API (https://mybusinessaccountmanagement.googleapis.com/) — to list the GBP accounts your Google login can manage. My Business Business Information API (https://mybusinessbusinessinformation.googleapis.com/) — to list the locations under each account so you can pick one. Google My Business API v4 (https://mybusiness.googleapis.com/) — to create local posts on the location you selected. This is the actual “publish” call. When and what is sent: * The OAuth handshake sends nothing about your WordPress posts — only your chosen Google account’s permission to act on its behalf. * For each post we publish on your behalf, we send the caption text, the URL of your featured image, the call-to-action button text + URL, and the post’s language code. We do not send any visitor data, analytics, or anything else. If you do not connect a Google account, GMB Poster never contacts Google. The semi-manual mode opens GBP in your browser as a normal page navigation (your browser, your session — exactly as if you had clicked a regular link). Google’s terms of service: https://policies.google.com/terms Google’s privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy

Auto Publishing Auto Publish for Google My Business lets you publish posts, custom posts and pages automatically from WordPress to your Google My Business page. Posts can be scheduled as well! Creating content on Google My Business is becoming an increasingly important SEO factor. But the problem is it can be a hassle creating new content and easy to forget. With Auto Publish for Google My Business you can start getting more content on your, or your clients’ business page on Google without having to do any additional operations. The plugin is simple, lightweight and FULLY free. You can also setup a default share message (which includes time saving shortcodes) and an action type for all your posts which you can override on the individual post page as well. You can also filter items to be published based on categories selected on the plugin settings page. You can choose whether you want to share posts, custom posts and pages. The plugin utilises the official Google My Business API so your posts featured image will automatically be used as the Google My Business post image and your post link will be set as the call to action link in Google My Business. You can also create event posts with a start and end date. Every post will automatically be published to Google My Business, however on each post there is a checkbox which enables you to not share a particular post or you can change the default to not publish posts automatically from the plugin settings. On the ‘All Posts/Pages/Custom Post Type’ screen you will also see a share history timeline for each post. From the plugin settings you can also create a manual new post which isn’t tied to any WordPress post/page/custom post type and you can also edit and remove past posts without even having to go to your Google My Business page. In version 1.2 of the plugin we have introduced full multiple location support! So you can select to use the plugin with multiple Google My Business locations, set your default locations and choose what locations to share to for each post! There is no limit to the amount of posts you can create! Reviews Display reviews on any post, page or in a sidebar widget using the review shortcode builder in the plugin settings. Simply change the settings and get a live preview of your review slider or grid. Then copy and paste the shortcode into the desired position on your website. There are heaps of options to customise the look of the reviews and you can even manually exclude specific reviews from displaying. Reviews will be updated automatically once every day so there’s no maintenance. Great Support The plugin comes with an FAQ section accessible from the plugin settings page and it’s transation friendly. Announcing AutoSocial Please check out the pro version called AutoSocial which provides the same functionality as Auto Publish for Google My Business but adds Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. AutoSocial has many other cool features you will love as well! Learn more