Suspension of a Google My Business Listing could be detrimental to your business.
The best and most detailed Guide on this can be found on www.bluecorona.com
The Short Answer
The Bad News: We have seen and confirmed with the Local SEO community that there has been a large increase in GMB suspensions across all verticals and markets.
The Good News: It’s fixable if you know why your listing was suspended.
More Bad News: Google won’t tell you why your listing was suspended.
More Good News: We’ve identified the top reasons Google suspends businesses, and in this post, I’m going to tell you how to prevent and/or fix a suspension.
What to do:
1. Make sure you are complying with the policies
See Guidelines for representing your business on Google
2. Submit a re-instatment
Form to request reinstatement for a suspended listing
3. Sit and wait – and you could be waiting 2-3 weeks for a reply.
What Google Says you should do
If you were TRULY suspended (and not caught up in the “glitch”) how you handle this depends on the type of suspension you received — a soft or hard suspension.Are you able to log in to your Google My Business dashboard and see your profile?First, do NOT create a new listing — that won’t help and will just complicate things.You can try and submit an appeal for reinstatement. You will be asked a series of questions that you have to answer and then you will fill out these two questions in detail:How have you changed your page since it was suspended (please be specific)?Additional information (please be specific)Google will then review that information and determine if your business profile should be reinstated. NOTE: Google is experiencing an unusually high volume of suspended listing appeals. Do not file multiple requests or reach out to the Google My Business team about the same issue via different support channels – this will only cause further delays.If you get your business profile reinstated, don’t make too many edits at one time — no more than 2 edits at a time and space them out. (That can trigger a red flag with Google.)Providing details about your business would allow us to better determine if you’re under a hard or soft suspension.Good luck
How to Contact Google
Here’s how to find the email/phone contact form from within your Google My Business Dashboard.
- Select the “Support” link in the bottom left of the Google My Business dashboard
- Select “Need More Help?”
- You need to select “Access and Ownership” and then “Other Problem”
- Once you do that you will be taken to a form that has the email and phone support options.
Credit to Sterling Sky for the instructions
Should I call them to expedite the process?
You can try this, but reports have not returned much success.
Try it – Talk to a Google Specialist
Other ways to Contact Google
Social Media
(This is my preferred method)
- Reach out to them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/googlemybusiness) by either posting on their wall or messaging the page directly.
- Tweet to them or direct message them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/googlemybiz
Expect a response within 24-48 hours (Monday-Friday only). During times of heavy usage the Social team can become backlogged and response times can take a week or more.
Address Issues
Some of the most common reasons we see listings get suspended have to do with the address. In the simplest of terms, your listing must show your actual, real-world address and you must make in-person contact with customers during your hours of operation.
- Using a PO box, remote mailbox or UPS store address are all no-nos and have been for a long time.
- Business does not have a physical location – p.o. or virtual office
- Online-only businesses are not eligible for listings.
- Service-area businesses must hide their address field.
- You cannot have multiple listings for one business (duplicates).
- If another business shares your exact address, your listing may be at risk of suspension.
- Listing has redirecting links or Tracking #’s
- Forgot or didn’t know that we already had a Google My Business page
- Information on listing keeps changing or is incorrect. Changing business information is a huge red flag to google but it is important to make sure info is accurate.
- Google thinks your spammy – could include spam posting, spammy links, or false information
Virtual Offices
In our experience, the listings that are still suspended after this particular spike are associated with virtual office addresses. According to the Google My Business guidelines, “If your business rents a temporary, “virtual” office at a different address from your primary business, do not create a page for that location unless it is staffed during your normal business hours by your business staff.”
High Risk Category
If you’re in a high risk category (like locksmiths, plumbers, HVAC and other home services) expect to be under a microscope. Making multiple edits at once to listings in home service categories can flag your listing and land you a suspension.
Spammy Tactics
While businesses that implement spammy tactics don’t get caught often enough, serious recurring spam like keyword-stuffing your business name, creating a fake listing or purchasing fake reviews could get your listing suspended. Just don’t.
Prohibited Content
According to the guidelines, illegal and fraudulent activities may result in an account suspension and listing suspension. Google reserves the right to suspend users and businesses from Google My Business and other Google services for violating the guidelines.
Forwarding Website URL
Don’t use a URL that redirects users to a landing page or social media page. Only use this field for your website URL.
Other Known Issues
If you aren’t making any of the above mistakes and still got hit with a suspension, it could be due to a few other factors that were happening around the time of this spike in suspensions.
Some account owners are scratching their heads after their business listings were suspended shortly after adding factual additional business details that even the GMB dashboard was even prompting them to add.
Where to find the information you need
Guidelines for representing your business on Google
https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177
Submit an appeal for reinstatement
https://support.google.com/business/troubleshooter/2690129?hl=en
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