The following is the result of a 6-month long saga with Google over the reinstatement of a client’s Google Business Profile. Our aim is to describe what happened, what we did, and how we resolved the problem.
The Case
We had a service company come to us from another marketing agency they were leaving behind. They came to us with a suspended Google Business Profile. We took this client on and began the reinstatement process.
More About the Case Client
Our client is a service company that serves two different metropolitan areas. They do not serve clients at their locations so they are a service area business. While they have 2 locations, they came to us with only one (GBP) Google Business Profile. It was that location that was suspended and that would prove quite the “reinstatement” challenge.
Our First Attempt
Diagnostics
When a profile is suspended you lose access to some of it. Things like posts and images become inaccessible. From what we could see, however, the profile was fine. There was no obvious NAP violation and the worst thing we saw was that they were using their location, instead of using a “service area business” setup. Fair enough. So we proceed to fill out the reinstatement form and launch the ticket. At the time we decided to continue the location business setup.
The Result
We succeeded in getting the profile reinstated after much back and forth that resulted in a phone interview and review of documents. It was at this time that we got to see the posts that the prior marketing agency posted. They were very low quality and “spammy” in nature. We deleted all of that. We put up a few high quality posts, and called it a day. 3 weeks later the profile was suspended again!
Things Get Interesting
Much to our dismay the profile was suspended again and we were left scratching our heads. How did this happen? How could Google approve of something one day and 3 weeks later suspend it? It’s not like we did anything to the profile other than some basic posts that did not violate any quality guideline. This begins numerous months and many case ticket ID’s of back and forth. At one point we were told that the business license could not be verified but that was false. After many such failures to reinstate we started to think outside the box. Up to this point we did not want to lose the reviews but realized they may need to be sacrificed.
The Solution
It turned out that the solution was to create a new GBP, but you had to first make sure to get rid. Meaning off of Google’s index. It was not enough to “remove business” from your GBP location manager. It is possible that at some point Google would eliminate this business from the database that way, but 3 weeks was not long enough. We tried it. From a new Google account base, “remove business” and weight 3 weeks, it would instantly go to suspended status.
