Google Business Profile Suspensions

Meredith's husband 0:34

This episode we're talking about Google suspensions suspensions to your Google business profile , how you can prevent them and how you can restore your business if it's already happened to you . Do you remember about a year ago when I started , I officially I got the domain name Meredith's husbandcom and I was setting it up in Google . I set up my my Google local business profile and it got suspended .

Meredith 0:59

Yes , right off the bat .

Meredith's husband 1:00

Yes , In my case , that was because of the business name . The business name was flagged . They didn't believe it was a real business and so they shut it down . I actually had to go out and register the business name Meredith's husband and then send them proof that it was a business and they put it back on . And then send them proof that it was a business and they put it back on .

Meredith's husband 1:19

But this issue that issue having your Google local business profile suspended is not uncommon for local business owners . It seems that it happens . Yeah , it's fairly common actually , and , on the flip side , it's also really important to have your business profile not be suspended . As a local business owner , you really want to have it there , so it can be a frustrating situation . Yeah , because , like I said , there's I don't , in fact , I think it's probably for a local , a small local business owner . I think it's more common for them to have issues with this than to not have any issues , like you have not had any issues with yours , because I've been maintaining it from the beginning and doing some stuff to ensure that it doesn't get suspended .

Meredith 2:04

My question is what can we do when it gets suspended and what can we do then to help it not get suspended ?

Meredith's husband 2:16

Those are two questions I'm actually going to answer . So in my case , it was my business name that got my profile flagged . It's usually an address situation , and the reason for that the reason why Google is so careful about verifying addresses is that so many people have tried to spam this system over the years . I would say less than reputable SEO firms and SEOs and business owners . They try to set up several local businesses so that they can have more than one listing on that front page of Google .

Meredith 2:47

For example , just like in New York , would they say Park Avenue and make imaginary addresses ?

Meredith's husband 2:53

They've tried that . They've tried literally everything , but what happens is or what has happened , the one that I know of as being the most common is they'll get several different business addresses . They'll just go get a mailbox If you're in Manhattan , let's say , you'll get a mailbox in Midtown , a mailbox on the Upper West Side , upper East Side , downtown , union Square , all these different places in effort to grab more business , and people have gone to pretty great lengths , I would say , to spam the system , and so Google has tried to combat that , I think , erring on the side of caution .

Meredith 3:26

Right .

Meredith's husband 3:26

And that's why people tend to get suspended , especially when it has to do with addresses . Now , the theory that most people have when their business is suspended , like this I should say a lot of people , a lot of business owners . Is that somebody you know ? They think oh , somebody reported my business as being closed and so Google shut it down .

Meredith 3:47

Oh , I would just think I'm you know like , oh , there's something I did wrong and now I'm getting in trouble . Yeah , no , there's number one .

Meredith's husband 3:54

There's nothing you did wrong . But also that's I've never heard of that happening , like reporting that another business is closed and then Google just shutting down the business .

Meredith 4:02

Yeah , why wouldn't they double check that with people ?

Meredith's husband 4:06

Yeah , I'll cover that a little bit . But what does happen sometimes is you can go onto Google and you can suggest an edit to somebody else's business and you can move their address . Suggest an edit to somebody else's business and you can move their address . You can literally , I think , say move the pin and you can move the pin to a different location . Now what has been happening recently is , as the business owner , when you notice this and you go back in and you change your address again , then your listing is suspended .

Meredith 4:38

When you do it back from when the people do it .

Meredith's husband 4:41

I don't know why it happens like this , and this will probably be a temporary situation . One thing about these Google business listings is that Google does change their methodology a little bit from like every year . Yeah , so this might . This case is what's happening right now . It hopefully will not be happening in a year , but yeah , what happens is , let's say , you're a local photographer . One of your competitor photographers goes online and says oh no , meredith's address is in Westchester or something , because they want to get rid of you . They want to get rid of their competition . So then Google makes that change .

Meredith 5:18

See why isn't it flagged at the first time ?

Meredith's husband 5:21

Well , I'll get to that . But then what happens ? But it just changes the address .

Meredith 5:25

Immediately .

Meredith's husband 5:27

And then you , not immediately , but soon .

Meredith 5:30

Seconds later , like a day or two or a week .

Meredith's husband 5:32

What you do is then you go in and you say oh , my address is wrong , and you change it back , and then your listing gets suspended .

Meredith 5:38

Okay .

Meredith's husband 5:39

So in that case , if your listing has already been suspended , there is only one solution you have to go to Google . You have to go through their support there I will link it below . I'll put a link to where you go and submit a request below and you have to go and you have to contact them and they will contact you back and then you start a dialogue with somebody at Google . Now , the downside is that this takes time . Remember , this is not a service you're paying for . This is something Google is doing for free , so they are probably under providing support services . However , they do eventually get back to you .

Meredith's husband 6:17

It usually takes weeks , but I have never heard of a case where Google support does not get back to you and not resolve this situation . That's the downside . The upside is that you then have a contact at Google , you have a dialogue with somebody working an email thread and then say oh , by the way , since you're helping me with this , I have this other issue , and the other issue gets taken care of . Now , having that sort of access to Google is pretty much unheard of .

Meredith 6:57

So there's kind of a silver lining if your website is suspended . When your site is suspended , what does that mean ? Does that mean people ? Yeah , what does it mean ?

Meredith's husband 7:06

So that means that your business is going to stop appearing in the map search ? Oh gosh , you're going to stop appearing as a local business and you're also . You know the panel on the right-hand side of the screen if you do a Google . If I did a search for Meredith's Dinner Photography , there's going to be a knowledge panel on the right hand of the screen and it's your business , your name , your address , phone number , a whole bunch of stuff that will disappear , that's no longer going to appear , and this is my theory , but this is probably going to harm your SEO rank , your organic rankings as well .

Meredith's husband 7:39

Good thing , remember the recent Google leak .

Meredith 7:42

Yes .

Meredith's husband 7:42

We did a couple episodes about that , but in there it became evident how important entities are . Your local business is an entity as far as Google is concerned , so it is pretty likely that the ramifications go beyond just your local business listing , unfortunately .

Meredith 8:01

I would partake in that theory .

Meredith's husband 8:05

So if you're already suspended , that's the only resolution . That's what you have to do . If your business listing has not been suspended , there's a couple things you can do to help prevent it .

Meredith 8:17

Yeah .

Meredith's husband 8:18

There's nothing you can do that will guarantee that it won't happen , but there are a couple of things you can do to help prevent it , and they're pretty simple . So number one you've got to monitor your listing . You've got to know if somebody else suggests that your address has changed . You don't want to catch that one , two , three , four , six months into the future . You want to catch that as soon as possible .

Meredith 8:41

And you're not notified about that .

Meredith's husband 8:43

No , you're not notified . No , you have to monitor it . It's your job to monitor your own listing . Now , if you go to Google Business Profile and log in , it will say yes , somebody has suggested that your address be changed . But Google is not going to reach out to every business owner and say hey , somebody suggested this , do you agree ?

Meredith 9:03

Do you think it would be that hard for them ?

Meredith's husband 9:05

You know , like I said , they're doing this for free .

Meredith 9:08

Is it their responsibility ?

Meredith's husband 9:10

I don't know , but it's pretty easy to monitor . Now you remember WhiteSpark We've talked about WhiteSpark in the past and how you can manage your what we call your local citations , your local business listings with WhiteSpark . Whitespark . Whitespark also has a service and I just discovered this fairly recently where you can monitor your business listing every month and if there is a change then you will be notified and you can also make your changes within WhiteSpark . It's really nice . It's a monthly service . Guess what this monthly service costs $500 . Guess again $2 .

Meredith's husband 9:42

No Too high , it's $1 a month .

Meredith 9:45

Oh really . Yeah it's $1 a month . You know again , I will invest in that . That is worth it to me .

Meredith's husband 9:53

It's worth a lot more , in my opinion , than $1 .

Meredith 9:56

Yeah .

Meredith's husband 9:57

Now that price , like I said , this , I think , is a relatively new service they're offering . So the price might increase at some point down the line In fact I probably think it will , but for $1 a month . I suggest everybody do this . I've done it for myself , I've done it for your business , I've done it for my clients . It's a no-brainer . I'll put the link below yeah , that's great .

Meredith's husband 10:18

So then , what happens if , now that you're monitoring your listing , if you do notice somebody suggested that your address has changed ? Here's what you should do , instead of going directly into your Google business profile and changing your address back . This is what's working right now , and this is something . If you're listening to this , a year from now , this method might not work anymore . This is one of those things that Google will probably change , but right now , what seems to be working is you log out of Google . You log out of the account you use to manage your Google local business . You log into a totally separate Gmail account that does not control any local business listings .

Meredith 10:57

Okay , wait , wait , wait , wait , wait . Time , time , time , time , time time . You have to . Let's just say , you don't have a non-business Gmail , you have to create one .

Meredith's husband 11:05

Right .

Meredith 11:05

Okay , I'm just , I want to be basic . Get all the you know information .

Meredith's husband 11:11

Right , create a free Gmail account . Okay , go to your business listing and suggest . Recommend to them . Recommend to Google , by using this suggest and edit feature , that your address be changed back . Okay to Google , by using this suggest and edit feature , that your address be changed back . Because if , like I said , remember , if you go right into your Google business profile then change the address , you're likely , or it's much more likely , that you're then going to be suspended . That's so weird .

Meredith 11:35

Even though it's coming from within your account .

Meredith's husband 11:38

Right , but for some reason and I don't know what spams have led Google to take this action , but I guarantee there are people trying to take advantage of the system that Google is preventing by doing this .

Meredith 11:51

Undoubtedly .

Meredith's husband 11:52

And , like I said , people are going to continue to come up with new scams and Google's going to have to change these methods , but this is what's working right now , okay .

Meredith 12:01

Okay , that's a good protection .

Meredith's husband 12:03

Okay , the other thing you can do .

Meredith 12:05

Yes .

Meredith's husband 12:06

To prevent this . Yes , if you have not done this already , you have to manage your own business citations . Remember again , in WhiteSpark , whitespark is a solution to do this . Your business citations are the other business listings you have on like Yellow Pages on Yelp , on Facebook , all these others .

Meredith's husband 12:28

If you have , say , five dozen other business listings out there , all with your address , and somebody suggests to Google that your address is not correct , it's going to be less likely that Google is going to change your address to begin with , because it can verify it across five dozen other websites . If you have not done that , if you have not set up to manage your local citations and you don't have those other business listings , google has less information to verify your address with and it is more likely to change it .

Meredith 12:59

Okay .

Meredith's husband 12:59

I recommend doing that . We've done one or perhaps even two podcast episodes about that , and I have a tutorial on exactly how to do that .

Meredith 13:07

Okay , can you link that below ?

Meredith's husband 13:10

I will link that below .

Meredith 13:11

Just in case you're a first-time listener , hello and welcome . Then somebody may not have any idea what you're talking about , so it'll sound , I will link it below . Perfect , so you can look at that .

Meredith's husband 13:24

And this is also a white spark service that I do recommend , and one of the reasons I think it's a good solution is because you can start really small . You do need a budget . This is a paid service , but you can start , and I cover this in the tutorial . You can start with a very small number of listings , like very inexpensively . Then , if you see there are problems and by problems what I mean is If your business has ever changed address , if you've moved your home and your home address is your business address , or you've moved from an office to your home or your home to an office if you've ever changed your domain name or a different office .

Meredith's husband 14:03

If you've changed your domain name , if you've changed your phone number , then you're going to have conflicting citations out there , conflicting local business information , and that's not good either . If you go to Whitespark and you do the smallest package , they will come back and they will tell you if there are conflicts out there , then you should take the next step and go further and resolve those conflicts on as many directories as you can . If your business has never changed address , never changed phone number , never changed website name , then you probably will not have any conflicting listings .

Meredith 14:36

Right , I kind of whenever you mention white sparks , do you think of white stripes , the white stripes , the band .

Meredith's husband 14:43

No , I don't .

Meredith 14:44

Me neither .

Meredith's husband 14:46

Glad we got that .

Meredith 14:47

It's just a very important question that everybody is everybody listening , right is thinking I knew it .

Meredith's husband 14:54

But that's it . It's relatively easy .

Meredith 14:57

Thank you , that's a very , very topical tip .

Meredith's husband 15:01

Oh , one thing A portion of the photography industry that seems to be hit with this more than others is the boudoir photography space

Google Business Profile Image Restrictions

Meredith's husband 15:09

. Huh , because you're kind of verging on adult content there .

Meredith 15:14

Interesting .

Meredith's husband 15:15

If you're , for example , if your images have a lot of skin tone in them . That is one of the ways that Google for many , many years , identified pornography is the amount of skin tone that was shown in an image or video .

Meredith's husband 15:29

So if you have a lot of skin , in your images a machine is probably going to flag your images right off the bat . So , no matter what , if you're dealing with this , google is not picking on you . It's not your fault . You didn't do anything wrong . Like I said , this is fairly common , and when you consider that Google is sending or presenting your business to dozens or hundreds or thousands , or even tens of thousands of people for free , right , this is something you're not paying for .

Meredith 16:01

Yeah .

Meredith's husband 16:02

I think it's fair for Google to say okay , you have to jump through a couple hoops for us .

Meredith 16:07

That's fair enough , I agree , I agree .

Meredith's husband 16:09

I think so . It's worth the price , Even if your business gets suspended . I know it's frustrating . I know , it's frustrating , but it's time really well invested to reach out to Google get it reinstated . I've never seen a business listing not be reinstated . Okay , unless it's actually a fake business yeah , okay .