Updated
If your park closes for the winter, here's my whole answer in three lines. Mark the listing temporarily closed the day you close the gate. Put a reminder in your phone for the week before you open. Set it back to open that morning.
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The rest of this is why, and what to do if Google is already telling people you're gone for good. That's the one that hurts. You open the map in April to check something else, and there it is in grey under your park's name: permanently closed. If your July bookings come in over the winter, that flag has been quietly doing its work the whole time you were fixing docks.
The listing I keep mentioning is your Google Business Profile. That's the panel with your name, photos, hours and reviews that shows up on Google Maps and in search results. You sign in and edit it yourself, which is the good news here.
Where a closed sign you didn't put up comes from
It may have been you, or a manager, or a marketing company you hired in 2019 and haven't spoken to since.
The other way is from outside. Anyone signed in to a Google account can suggest a change to a place on Maps. The list of things they can change includes whether the place is open or closed, and Google says it reviews all the edits people make before they appear. That's from Google's own help page on editing a place. So a closed sign you don't remember setting may have arrived as somebody's suggestion.
Picture November at your gate. The chain is up and the office is shuttered, and somebody who wanted to walk their dog on your trail pulls in, finds it locked, and reports the park as closed. From the road, a park that's shut for the winter and a park that's shut for good look exactly the same.
From the road, a park that's shut for the winter and a park that's shut for good look exactly the same.
Either way you fix it the same way, by signing in and setting it right. What's worth more of your attention is what you set it to.
Which setting to use when you close for the winter
Temporarily closed. I'll skip the suspense.
Google's help page on marking a business closed says the same thing: use temporarily closed when you're shut for more than seven days, shut for the off-season, or shut with no date to reopen. The off-season is named right there, so you're not bending anything to make it fit. Google's content guidelines say it a second way, under a heading called seasonal hours: mark the business temporarily closed for the off-season, then set your regular hours again when you reopen.
Permanently closed is for a business that isn't coming back. Leave it alone. Google's page adds that a listing marked permanently closed may still turn up for people searching your name, which is how one can sit there all winter without anything obviously vanishing.
Special hours are a different tool. Google describes them as a way to change your hours for a brief period, like a special event, without changing your regular hours. The cutoff is about a week: one Google page says up to six days in a row, another says seven days or less, and both point you at temporarily closed for anything longer. Handy for the week you redo the bathhouse. Wrong for winter.
| Setting | What Google says it's for | Use it at your park when |
|---|---|---|
| Open with main hours | Your regular customer-facing hours | The gate is open and you're taking guests |
| Special hours | A brief change, like an event, without touching regular hours | A maintenance week, a holiday, a closure of a few days |
| Temporarily closed | Closed more than seven days, for the off-season, or with no reopen date | The winter, from the day you chain the gate to the morning you open |
| Permanently closed | A business that isn't coming back | Never, unless you're really done |
What temporarily closed costs you
I'd rather you heard this part from Google than from me. Its page says that on broad searches, places marked temporarily closed can come up after the ones that are open, and that how much this matters depends on your category, the kind of search, and how many other places nearby are closed at the time.
While the gate is chained that costs you close to nothing, because nobody is arriving anyway. It gets expensive in one spot. If the flag is still on in April, it's working against you in the exact weeks people are booking their summer.
So the job is small. Mark it honestly in October, and take it off the morning you open.
What I'd do in October
Anyone who's put a boat away for the winter already knows the shape of this. The work that would have saved you in July is work nobody has time for in July, so it gets done in the quiet months or it doesn't get done. This is a one-sitting item on that list.
- Set the listing to temporarily closed the day you close the gate.
- Keep special hours for short closures. A week or less.
- Leave permanently closed alone.
- Put your season in the description in plain words. Open May 1 to October 15, gate hours 9 to 8. Somebody reading in February wants to know when they can come, and a status by itself won't tell them. Google's guidelines say the description is for useful information about what you offer.
- Set a phone reminder for the week before you open. Not the week you open.
- Look at the listing once a month over the winter. A quick look on your phone.
While you're in there, add a couple of photos and answer any review you haven't got to. Neither takes long, and a listing you've looked at recently is one where you'll notice a change you didn't make.
Fixing a listing that already says permanently closed
Sign in and set the status to what's true today. Open in season, temporarily closed out of it.
If it says permanently closed and you are opening again, Google's page on reopening walks you through it: edit profile, then hours, choose edit beside business hours, pick open with main hours, tick the days you're open, set the times, and save.
Two things can go sideways from here. The change doesn't hold, and then I'd get in touch with Google Business Profile support and bring what you've got: dated photos of the open park, your signage, your season dates. That's me talking rather than a step on Google's page. Or you can't sign in at all, because the listing sits under a former owner's email or an old vendor's account. That's its own headache and is covered in why your campground has two Google listings.
When to do this
Two dates. October, when you put the water lines to bed, set the listing. April, the morning you open, set it back.
That's the whole job: one sitting in October, and a phone reminder that goes off in April.
If yours is wrong right now, the independent campgrounds page covers the other listing checks worth doing at the same time, including which category to pick. Or email hello@campgroundseo.com and I'll tell you what Google is currently saying about you. I'm Christopher Ross, I work from Fort Erie on Lake Erie, and I look at parks anywhere in Canada and the U.S.
Sources
Checked against Google help pages on 2026-09-21: Mark your business as closed, Mark your business as reopened, Guidelines for representing your business on Google, Set special hours, Edit place information in Google Maps
Common questions
I run three parks. Do I have to reopen each one by hand?
No. Google's reopening page has a path for several at once: sign in to Business Profile Manager, select the locations, choose Actions, then Open, then Mark as open. The closing page has a matching section for closing multiple businesses.
I keep a few winterized sites open for hunters. Am I closed or open?
Open. Temporarily closed is for a park nobody can stay at. If any sites are taking guests, leave the status open, set the reduced hours as your regular hours for that stretch, and say in the description which sites and services are running.
How long does it take for a suggested edit to show up on the map?
Google doesn't give a number. Its editing page says changes may take time to appear and that it keeps you updated on the status of your edits. That applies to the stranger's edit and to yours, so check the listing a day or two after you change it.
We renamed the park over the winter and the old name shows permanently closed. Do I reopen it?
Not that one. Google's page says a listing closed as part of a name or location change stays closed. Add a new profile under the new name, verify it, and ask Google to move the reviews across.
Should I confirm my hours for holidays even if they don't change?
Google's special hours page suggests it. Confirming holiday hours that match your regular ones tells customers the hours are deliberate and current, not just left over.
Canadian? The same three sizes in Canadian dollars are on the CAD pricing page.