Four stories from the week that matter to your business.

Two things shifted on Google this year that every rural small business with a Google listing needs to know about, and both of them came into focus for local-SEO reporters the week of April 11. First, the Questions and Answers section on Google Business Profile, the little Q&A box under your map listing, is being retired. The API was shut off last November and the feature itself is now disappearing from listings gradually. Google is replacing it with an AI-generated answer system that pulls from your business information, your reviews, and your photos, automatically. You do not control it directly any more.

Second, and more immediate: local SEO practitioners are seeing visibility drops on profiles that go more than thirty days without a new photo, a new post, or an updated field. The old truth was that your profile sat there and worked. The new truth is that a quiet profile looks stale to Google's ranking system, and stale profiles are slipping in the results. The good news is that refreshing a profile takes about thirty minutes once a month, and the Planting Chart this week walks you through exactly that.

If you pay Microsoft for Copilot Business at the eighteen-dollar-per-user-per-month rate, that price is a promotion that ends June 30, 2026. After that date, the price rises to twenty-one dollars per user per month. For a one-person business the difference is thirty-six dollars a year. For a five-person shop paying for everyone, it is one hundred eighty dollars a year. Not a crisis, but a real line on the ledger.

The larger signal in the news is that Microsoft is broadening Copilot promotional eligibility for bigger buyers, but those changes do not apply to rural small businesses. Your plan is what it is. If you find Copilot useful, keep it. If you do not, this is a good moment to ask whether it earns its keep each month. And if you have been wondering whether to start paying for Copilot at all, the honest Almanac answer is the same as last week: wait until you have a specific problem you need it to solve, then pick the cheapest plan that solves it.

In late March the Federal Trade Commission settled a case against a company called Air AI and banned its owners from marketing business opportunities to small businesses. The charge was that Air AI had promised small-business owners revenue growth and earnings results that its AI software could not deliver. The case follows a dozen similar enforcement actions in 2025 targeting what the FTC now calls AI-washing, which is marketing that overstates what an AI product can actually do.

The pattern is straightforward, and worth keeping in mind when a sales email lands in your inbox. If a vendor guarantees your revenue will go up by a specific percentage because of their AI, or guarantees you will rank first on Google, or guarantees any outcome that depends on customers you do not control, the FTC is watching. That does not mean every AI tool is suspect. It means promises are. A tool that helps you write an email faster is honest. A tool that promises to double your sales in thirty days is the kind of promise a regulator now has a track record of pursuing. Buy the tool. Not the promise.

The U.S. Small Business Administration reminded Montana small businesses this week that May 4 is the deadline to apply for low-interest federal disaster loans tied to the drought declared last July. The covered counties are Beaverhead, Broadwater, Carbon, Gallatin, Jefferson, Madison, Meagher, Park, Silver Bow, Stillwater, and Sweet Grass. Flathead County is not on the current list, but if you run a ranch, a small ag-related business, or a rural nonprofit in any of those counties, or know someone who does, this is one to read carefully.

The loan terms are generous by any standard: up to two million dollars, four percent interest for small businesses and three-point-six-two-five percent for nonprofits, terms up to thirty years, no interest accrual and no payments until twelve months after the first disbursement. Applications go through sba.gov/disaster. The SBA also offers a sixty-day grace period after May 4, but waiting is not the move; the sooner the paperwork is in, the sooner a loan officer opens the file. If you are not sure whether you qualify, call the SBA Customer Service Center at (800) 659-2955. They will tell you for free.