Holiday hours need to live in three places at once: your Google Business Profile, your website's visible text, and the schema markup behind it. If they drift, patients and AI assistants will see contradictory information, one source says you're open, another says closed, and someone will show up or call during a closure. Set them all before Thanksgiving.
Why Three Places Matter
Google Business Profile is what patients see on Google Maps and Search. Your website text is what a person reads when they land on your practice page. Schema markup is the structured data that AI assistants like ChatGPT and Perplexity use to pull your hours into their answers.
A patient might ask ChatGPT, "Are physical therapists open on Thanksgiving in Brooklyn?" If your markup says closed but your GBP says open, the assistant has conflicting data. It will either guess, cite nothing, or cite your competitor instead. The same applies to optometry, chiropractic, and any practice that closes for holidays.
When all three sources agree, an AI assistant can confidently cite your practice. When they disagree, you lose the citation.
Google Business Profile Special Hours
Log into Google Business Profile and find the Hours section. Below your regular hours, there's a Special Hours field. Add each closure as a date range with the status "Closed."
Write Thanksgiving as a single day, not a range: November 28, 2026. Set the status to "Closed." Repeat for any other holiday your practice observes, Christmas, New Year's Day, Independence Day. If you're open on the day after Thanksgiving (often a lighter schedule), add that separately with regular hours.
Save. GBP updates within a few hours.
This is the single source of truth for Google's own search results. When someone searches "physical therapist near me open today," Google pulls the status from here first.
Your Website's Holiday Hours Page
Create a visible section on your practice website, usually on the homepage, contact page, or a dedicated hours page, that lists holiday closures in plain text.
Write it plainly:
Holiday Closures
We will be closed on Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 2026, and will reopen on Friday, November 29 at 8:00 AM.
We are closed on Christmas Day (December 25) and New Year's Day (January 1).
Link to our free AI check to verify how an AI assistant reads your hours, you can ask ChatGPT or Perplexity directly: "When is [practice name] open on Thanksgiving?" and see what they retrieve.
A person landing on your site should see the closure immediately, without digging. A patient who shows up because they missed the closure will cost you trust and a cancellation.
The Markup: OpeningHoursSpecification
Your practice's schema markup should use MedicalBusiness (or a related healthcare type) and include openingHoursSpecification for regular hours. For holiday closures, add a second entry to the same field with the status set to "Closed."
Here's the structure:
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "MedicalBusiness",
"name": "Your Practice",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "123 Main Street",
"addressLocality": "Brooklyn",
"addressRegion": "NY",
"postalCode": "11216"
},
"openingHoursSpecification": [
{
"@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
"dayOfWeek": ["Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday"],
"opens": "09:00",
"closes": "18:00"
},
{
"@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
"dayOfWeek": "Saturday",
"opens": "10:00",
"closes": "14:00"
},
{
"@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
"dayOfWeek": "Sunday",
"opens": "Closed"
},
{
"@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
"opens": "2026-11-28",
"closes": "2026-11-28",
"dayOfWeek": "Thursday",
"validFrom": "2026-11-28",
"validThrough": "2026-11-28"
}
]
}
The last entry is the holiday closure. Set opens and closes to the same date, and use validFrom and validThrough to mark the exact day. Use ISO 8601 date format (YYYY-MM-DD).
If your practice reopens with different hours the next day (e.g., lighter schedule on Black Friday), add another entry:
{
"@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
"opens": "2026-11-29",
"closes": "2026-11-29",
"dayOfWeek": "Friday",
"validFrom": "2026-11-29",
"validThrough": "2026-11-29",
"opens": "10:00",
"closes": "15:00"
}
(Note: a holiday entry for a single day with altered hours should use both the date fields and the time fields, as shown above.)
Checking Your Markup
Use Google's Rich Results Test, paste your page URL at https://search.google.com/test/rich-results. Google will parse your schema and show you the parsed hours. If the holiday closure appears, it's readable. If it doesn't, check the date format and the field names.
Copy your markup code exactly. A single typo in validFrom or dayOfWeek will cause Google and AI assistants to ignore the holiday entry.
Why AI Assistants Rely on This
When you ask ChatGPT or Perplexity, "Is [practice name] open on Thanksgiving?", the assistant retrieves the practice's site and reads the markup first. If the markup says closed, the assistant will cite that. If the markup is missing or contradictory, the assistant falls back to text on the page, and if that's also unclear, it may guess or cite a competitor that has clearer hours.
We wrote about generative engine optimization as making information readable to AI. Holiday hours are one of the clearest cases: a single misplaced date in your markup means an assistant sends a patient to your voicemail on a day you're closed.
When to Set This
Set all three, GBP, website, markup, by the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Give Google's GBP time to update. Test your markup on the Rich Results Test. Ask ChatGPT or Perplexity directly whether they show your closure.
If you observe holidays beyond Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day, set those now too. Add them for the calendar year ahead. Markup each once, and you won't have to remember them again until the year changes.
What This Means for Your Practice
A patient who sees conflicting hours will assume you're disorganized or untrustworthy. An AI assistant that retrieves contradictory data will cite your competitor instead. A practice owner who doesn't update their hours before a major holiday will spend the day answering calls from people asking if you're open.
Set the hours once, in all three places, by next week.