Google My Business Listing Suspended? Here's How to Recover

Google My Business Listing Suspended? Here's How to Recover

For most small businesses, Google My Business (GMB) is their marketing lifeline.

Because it’s free, many local businesses rely solely on their Google My Business profile to generate traffic and calls, as well as to bring customers to their storefronts.

Marketers know it’s risky to put all of your marketing eggs in one basket.

But for a local business that has a limited budget – or no marketing budget at all – a free GMB listing is often all they have to promote their business online.

That means if the business has any problems with their Google My Business profile, it can have a significant negative impact on their business and cause immediate panic:

According to BrightLocal’s Google My Business Insight Study, the average business is found in 157 direct searches each month and 852 discovery searches.

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This totals an average of 1,009 searches per month.

For most small businesses, that’s a lot of potential customers.

Losing that much online exposure can be disastrous – especially if they aren’t doing any other online marketing efforts.

When a business’ Google My Business profile gets suspended, it can literally make a company’s sales come to a screeching halt.

And a suspended GMB listing will cause the business owner a lot of stress and worry – especially when most aren’t sure why they were suspended in the first place.

What Is A Google My Business Suspension?

A Google My Business suspension is when your GMB listing is no longer visible on Google and Google Maps or you have lost control of your listing (your business listing is essentially “unverified” and you can’t manage it.)

You will know that your listing has been suspended when you see this notification in your GMB dashboard:

When your listing gets suspended, Google doesn’t tell you the exact reason why it was suspended.

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GMB listings can get suspended for a variety of reasons – many of the reasons have to do with spammy tactics or if the GMB listing owner breaks Google My Business Guidelines.

Google can also give you a Manual Suspension if they review your listing and find an issue with it.

This review often comes after someone reports your listing through GMB’s Redressal Form.

It’s also possible for a user to report a listing on Google Maps or search through the Suggest an Edit feature.

If that person is “trusted” enough by Google, it is possible that their suggestion to remove the business listing or make negative edits could take effect almost immediately.

Suspensions can also happen after you make changes to your listing.

For instance, one of my client’s listings was immediately suspended after I changed his landscaping business from a storefront with a physical address to a service area business by deleting the address.

Immediately after I deleted the address from the listing, his GMB profile was suspended.

There are two types of suspensions:

A hard suspension.

A soft suspension.

What Is a Hard Suspension?

A hard suspension is when you do a search for your company’s name and city and your Knowledge Panel doesn’t show up online – which is a very bad thing because potential customers won’t be able to find your GMB listing on Google Maps or search results.

Hard suspensions usually happen when Google determines that your business doesn’t qualify for a GMB listing or if you’re using spammy tactics.

What Is a Soft Suspension?

A soft suspension is when your business’ Knowledge Panel still shows up online and you can access it in your GMB dashboard, but it looks as if it hasn’t been verified and you can’t manage or update your listing.

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If you have a soft suspension, your GMB profile can be subjected to user suggested edits more easily – making it more vulnerable to incorrect changes and wrong information being displayed.

Also, some industries are more likely to get suspensions than others.

These categories are known to have more spam and fake listings, which makes them more prone to suspensions.

Google and SEO professionals have been trying to crack down on spammy and fake GMB listings, so if you’re in one of these industries, it’s very possible that someone will report your profile if you are violating any Google My Business rules.

These spammy categories are typically Service Area Business (SABs) and include:

Locksmiths.

Lawyers.

Plumbers.

Pest control services.

HVAC.

Etc.

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The Dreaded Google My Business Suspended Notification

If your listing hasn’t been suspended yet, you’re lucky.

Most listings at some point or another will face a suspension. (So it’s best to be prepared!)

Why would you get suspended?

If your GMB listing gets suspended, it’s likely that you have done something that looks suspicious, spammy or you broke Google My Business Terms of Service.

Google suspends listings for a variety of reasons – especially if you are violating Google My Business Guidelines.

How do you know if your GMB profile has been suspended?

Most business owners first notice a decrease in calls or visitors to their business.

They will then do a quick search online and may not find their listing at all or they will log in to their Google My Business dashboard and see a notification that alerts them that their listing has been Suspended:

That’s when you have to try and figure out exactly why your listing was suspended and begin the process of fixing the situation.

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Determine Why Your Google My Business Listing Was Suspended

One of the main frustrations with suspensions is that Google doesn’t tell you why your listing got suspended – so it often becomes a guessing game.

For instance, if you are in a high-spam industry like lawyers, locksmiths, or plumbers, you might get your listing suspended just because of the industry you’re in.

If you sat down at your computer and made several updates to your Google My Business listing, that also can sometimes cause Google to be suspicious and trigger a suspension.

Here are some other main reasons why Google My Business listings get suspended:

Keyword stuffing your business name.

Using a P.O. Box or UPS store address.

You set up your listing at a virtual office or co-working space address.

You have a service-area business and are displaying a physical address.

You have an online-only business.

You are in a high-risk business category, like lawyers, plumbers, HVAC, locksmiths, rehab centers, etc.

If another business shares your same address.

You have made a bunch of changes/edits to your GMB profile at one sitting.

The URL you add to your GMB profile forwards/redirects to another website or links to a social media page.

If you change your listing from a Storefront to a Service Area Business (SAB).

Your address or hours don’t match what is listed on your website or other online business directories/citations.

You list your business hours as 24/7.

A manager on your listing got their Account suspended – so your listing got suspended because they got suspended.

You created multiple listings for the same business at the same address (duplicate listings).

If you’ve done any of these things, you will need to fix the issues before you try and get your Google My Business profile reinstated.

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Fix Your GMB Profile Problems Before You Fill Out The Reinstatement Form

Seeing that suspension notice will probably cause you to panic – and you may be tempted to fill out the reinstatement form right away.

But, wait!

Before you can apply for reinstatement, you have to fix what’s wrong with your listing.

Many people who get their listing suspended think they should just create a new listing to avoid fixing the suspended profile.

Do not create a new listing!

Doing that will just complicate things.

When it comes to fixing what caused the suspension, you should first carefully read the Google My Business Guidelines to make sure you didn’t violate any of those rules.

You also need to look at the “Info” section in your Google My Business Profile and carefully look at each and every field to see what may be in violation.

For instance, if you have keyword-stuffed your business name, you need to fix your company’s name to get your listing reinstated.

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In the example above, the real estate agent added extra, spammy words to the name of her business.

Before she submits her reinstatement form, she needs to delete the words “- Florida: The Smart Choice For Real Estate!” from her business name.

If you think you were suspended because you have your hours listed as 24/7, then you should adjust your hours to be something like 8:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. before you submit the reinstatement request.

(Note: The hours you list on your GMB profile should be the hours that you have staff/employees at your business location to meet with customers. Google wants to know when you have employees at your business to physically help customers.)

Do you have a duplicate listing problem or have you set up more than one business at the same address?

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You would need to fix the duplicate issue before you try to get your listing reinstated.

Once you think you’ve figured out the issues and have fixed your profile, it’s time to get a second opinion.

Before you fill out the reinstatement form, it is a good idea to go to the Google My Business Help Forum and post the details of your suspension there and ask for a second opinion of what may be the cause of your suspension and how you fixed it.

To help the volunteer moderators on the forum, please provide details on exactly what the situation is, why you think you may have been suspended and provide the following information:

The Google Local Page URL.

Full legal business name.

Address (one used to verify – even if you are a service-based business).

Your Website URL.

Screenshot of your “Info” section from your GMB Dashboard.

Provide images of permanent signage or other images of proof of your business’ name and address (like a business license or documentation from your Secretary of State).

Explain what you changed right before your listing was suspended.

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The moderators on the forum can then take a look at your information and offer suggestions and tips on your suspended listing and can give advice on what you should change to improve your chances of getting reinstated.

Fill Out the Google My Business Reinstatement Form

Once you’ve fixed the problems with your listing, it’s time to submit an appeal for reinstatement.

You will be asked a series of questions to answer.

How you answer each question determines the next question you are asked.

You must answer all the questions completely and honestly.

Here is an example of some of the various questions you will be asked on the reinstatement request form.

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In order to prove that you are a legitimate business, you need to provide photos or screenshots showing proof that you are a valid business and proof of your address if you have a storefront.

These should include photos of:

Your storefront as seen from the street or the front of your building.

Permanent signage inside and outside of your building.

The inside of your business as customers see it when they walk into your place of business.

If available, a link showing the Google Street View image of the street or neighborhood where your business is.

You also want to provide Google with other supporting documents that show proof of your business’ name and address, such as:

A business license or proof of the business’ registration with your Secretary of State.

Insurance documents.

Pictures of your logo on your company vehicle.

An office walk-through video.

Picture of the office building’s directory with your name on it.

Etc.

You can upload proof in the form of images, video files, PDFs, and documents.

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This is where you can make your case, so be sure to upload all the proof you can that proves you are a legitimate business at the location you have listed.

Once you submit your appeal for reinstatement, Google will review the information you submitted and determine if your business profile should be reinstated.

Google will email you about the status of your reinstatement request.

You will need to reply to that email if you have more questions or if Google needs more information from you.

Tip: Do not file multiple reinstatement requests or reach out to the Google My Business team about the same issue through different Google My Business support channels – this will only cause delays.

It typically takes about two weeks for Google to review your reinstatement request.

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If it’s been more than three weeks and your listing still hasn’t been reinstated, you can contact GMB support via Twitter or Facebook and ask for an update.

NOTE: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the only way to reach Google My Business Support is via email.

Whenever you contact support, Google needs to confirm that you actually own the account you are writing in about.

To prove that, log in to the suspended business listing in your Google My Business dashboard and copy the URL.

It’s also a good idea to provide your GMB listing’s CID number.

If you have a physical location, you can use a tool like BrightLocal’s Google Review Link & Place ID Generator to generate the CID number.

If your business gets reinstated, you may find that your reviews have disappeared.

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Keep in mind that it can take longer for your reviews to re-appear after reinstatement.

It can even take up to a month for them to appear back in your GMB listing.

If your reviews don’t show up after a month, contact the GMB support team to see if they can assist you.

Final Thoughts

Now that you know more about GMB suspensions, you will hopefully be better prepared should you see the Suspended notice in your dashboard.

Remember, GMB suspensions can sometimes happen for random reasons – like if you make too many changes at one time, if a competitor suggests an edit, or even if there’s a glitch on Google’s end.

Make sure you’re prepared and that you are not just counting on Google My Business for all your online marketing efforts.

And always try to follow Google’s rules – remember they are the ones with the upper hand.

More Resources:

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Image Credits

All screenshots taken by author, June 2020

02

How To Use Google My Business To Get Better Rankings On Google (Without Ads)

Alex Bider is the CEO and Senior Internet Marketing Consultant at 2Marketing.com.

Getty

Using Google My Business successfully is like wielding any other digital power tool. With the right application, you can build a listing that’ll get found by the right people. With the wrong application, you could do some lasting damage to your online presence.

In 2020, the first page of Google search results is one of the environments where successful marketing can be found. Appearing at the top of page one gives automatic authority to a website. Google My Business results typically display at the top of page one, above the organic results.

Properly optimizing your Google My Business listing can be enough to make you appear frequently in local search results, and there are many ways you can monetize the traffic you’ll get as a result. 

How To Create A Google My Business Listing

Log in to the Google account you want to use, and go to https://www.google.com/business/. Click on “Manage Now,” and then enter the information as prompted, starting with your business name.

Note: You only need to enter an address if you have a store, office or other location where you meet customers face to face. If your business provides goods or services to a specific area, you’ll be classified as a service area business. If that’s the case, make sure you tick the corresponding box at the bottom of the form. If you have a service area business, this is also where you’ll specify which areas you serve.

Lastly, choose your business category, and add your contact information. Then select "Finish" to move on to verification. 

Many businesses will have to verify via postcard, which can take up to two to four weeks to arrive. But some will get the option to verify by phone or email — be sure to check if you qualify for these speedier options.

How To Audit And Optimize Your Account

Once your business is verified, there are a number of ways to improve your odds of showing up in Google search results. Make sure you’ve filled out all the information fields possible, covering the keywords and topics relevant to your business. It’s also good to mention any special features or benefits that your business brings to the table. Are you bilingual? Mention it in your description!

You’ll also want to add a profile photo and upload a few other pictures that either display your location or give an idea of what you do. Current customers love to be able to see a business making progress, and showing that you’re actively evolving can help to attract new clients.

Double-check that everything is correct, and consider making a post or two to get things started. Google My Business posts can include images, text and call-to-action button links. They’re a great way to feature sales, draw more attention to your content or just get people clicking through to your website.

What You Need For Ongoing Success

Succeeding on Google My Business is a pretty simple formula, but it requires creativity and dedication to execute correctly. Here are some tips:

• Appealing images are a must. Make them at least 720 x 720 pixels and either JPGs or PNGs.

• Quick and open responses to customer reviews (whether positive or negative) will go a long way.

• Checking your GMB insights at least once a week will keep you up to date on how different tactics and trends affect your business.

How To Stand Out From The Crowd

Keeping consistent with both the quantity and quality of your posts will set you apart from other businesses that allow their listings to languish. Pointing links from websites and other social platforms to your GMB listing should also help to improve your ranking.

Most brands don’t put enough effort into their GMB listings, so if you run a special promotion for your audience there, you’ll be more likely to get and maintain a potential buyer’s interest.

Final Thoughts On Optimizing Google My Business

When you manage to rank in the top three GMB listings for a local search term, it increases your exposure and your inherent authority significantly. This won’t just increase your traffic; it will increase your targeted buyer traffic. People who have money to spend and only a few minutes to make a decision will trust you based on your ranking, reviews, easy-to-comprehend descriptions and appealing images. When they click through to your website, the rest is up to you.

Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?

03

How to Launch Your First Google Ads Remarketing Campaign

Remarketing is a wonderful concept.

When remarketing campaigns are executed with thoughtfulness and intent, incremental conversions and sales can be fruitful.

It is a chance to re-engage your target audience and get a second chance at their attention.

To launch an effective Google Ads remarketing campaign, the success comes within the setup.

Below are the five crucial steps to complete your campaign.

1. Ensure Proper Tagging Is In Place

In order for a remarketing to serve impressions, it is vital that the proper tracking is on a website.

Most websites will use either Google Analytics or Google Ads tracking, I recommend having both sources as options.

Google Ads Tag

If your Google Ads account is starting from scratch, a Global Site Tag will need to be implemented.

To find this specific to your account, navigate to: Tools & Settings > Audience Manager > Audience Sources.

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Depending on your relationship with the account, select one of the 3 options for the Tag setup. The most important part of the step is the placement of the tag.

Per Google’s instructions, the tag must be placed between the <head></head> tags of every page of your website.

Google Analytics Tag

Google Analytics tracking is required before being able to create any remarketing list within the platform.

To find the tracking code, navigate to Admin > Property View > Tracking Info > Tracking Code.

Checking for Tag Implementation

The easiest way to check if tags have been implemented properly is to download the “Tag Assistant” extension in a Chrome browser.

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Navigate to your website and run the Tag Assistant. If implemented correctly, the results should look similar to this.

The green happy face means that the tags are in the proper place.

2. Create Intentional Remarketing Lists

Now that you have ensured tracking is in place, it’s time to create intentional remarketing lists.

Intention is extremely important when crafting remarketing audiences.

If you simply targeted “All Visitors” to your website, you’re doing it wrong.

Google Analytics and Google Ads provide an immense amount of options to segment your site viewers as granular as you want.

Keep in mind, a list that is too narrow will have a hard time serving.

The key is to find a balance of audience size and their intent.

Google Analytics Lists

My personal preference is to create remarketing ads in Google Analytics.

Because there is onsite behavior data to layer onto lists, it gives more options to qualify that audience.

To create an audience in Google Analytics, navigate to: Admin > Property View > Audience Definitions > Audiences.

Note: This is under the assumption that a user has already linked the proper Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts for data sharing.

Now, it’s time to get creative.

The key is to create multiple remarketing lists based on the categorization of your website.

A few starter ideas to consider when creating a remarketing list portfolio:

Category page viewers.

Purchasers/Leads (to exclude in campaigns).

All Qualified site traffic (determined by time on site, whatever amount is considered above average for your business).

Quality Blog Viewers (determined by time on site, whatever amount is considered above average for your business).

Cart Viewers.

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In this example, I want to create a remarketing list of anyone who visited a specific landing page but stayed on the site for at least 10 seconds.

Navigate to Advanced > Conditions.

The two key pieces of information to input would be “page” AND “session duration” (not “OR”).

Once completed, don’t forget to choose your audience destinations.

Always be sure to choose the Google Ads account for the list to import.

By doing so, the list can be used for Remarketing campaign purposes.

Google Ads Lists

To create lists in Google Ads, navigate to Tools & Settings > Audience Manager > Audience Lists.

There are five different types of remarketing lists available to create:

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Website Visitors

App users

YouTube users

Customer list

Custom combinations

This article gives a more in-depth breakdown of how to create effective YouTube remarketing lists.

Depending on the goal, create your necessary remarketing lists and choose a list duration. The maximum duration a user can stay in a list is 540 days.

The benefit of Google Ads remarketing lists is that they give the option of pre-populating the list with users in the past 30 days. Google Analytics does not offer retroactive audience filling.

3. Determine Proper Assets

The most popular remarketing campaign type is within the Google Display Network (GDN). However, there are Remarketing Search campaigns.

Before creating the proper assets, ask these questions first:

What is the user being asked to do?

What should the message consist of?

Does the landing page experience match the ad messaging?

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There are key components to consider when creating remarketing assets. Below are some of them:

Static image formats

Responsive image formats

Headlines and descriptions (if using responsive format)

Landing page experience

The full list of uploaded display ad specifications for Google Ads can be found here.

It is important to note that if using the Responsive Ad format, images must be ratio based and are not the same as static image requirements.

4. Create a Remarketing Campaign

Remarketing campaigns can be built in either Google Ads interface or Google Ads Editor.

Start with the campaign name, budget, and settings. If you’re creating multiple remarketing campaigns, keep track by putting the audience name in the campaign.

The campaign settings can make or break performance. When they are not properly managed or maintained, expect some volatility in performance. These include:

“Observation vs. Target” setting

Bid Strategy setting

Targeting Expansion setting

Location setting

Frequency Cap setting

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When adding audiences to a remarketing campaign, choose the “Targeting” setting instead of “Observation”.

By keeping it at “Observation” mode, audience targeting is not narrowed at all.

When selecting a bid strategy, be sure to select one based on your goals.

For example, if you are to use “Target CPA” and set the bid too low, Google will throttle impressions and the campaign will be at risk to serve.

Lastly, be competitive with bids because the targeted audiences have already been introduced to your brand.

The next setting, “Targeting Expansion,” is one that Google has conveniently hidden within the Ad Group settings.

Always set this to zero in a remarketing campaign.

If you went through the trouble of creating a targeted list, why on earth would Google want us to expand to lookalike users in the same campaign?

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The default setting is “People in, or who show interest, in your targeted locations”.

While this is the recommended setting according to Google, I recommend changing to “in or regularly in targeted location.” By changing it to the middle selection below, it allows for narrower targeting.

Lastly, frequency cap settings are still important because seeing the same ad multiple times per day creates a bad user experience.

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Be sure to set frequency caps at a moderate level per user.

5. Analyze, Refine & Optimize

You’ve officially launched your first remarketing campaign!

That’s all there is, right?

Wrong.

It is important to keep a pulse on campaign performance early on. Some of the key items to watch for in the early days include:

Ensure audience size is large enough to show impressions.

Placements (where ads are showing).

After a few weeks of data (give or take, depending on the audience size), there should be enough information to start making optimizations based on performance.

The goal is to continually refine.

Remarketing campaigns are not a “set and forget” strategy.

Pulling It All Together

Pulling off a remarketing campaign requires the areas of technology, audiences, messaging, and settings to come together.

Without even one of these areas present, a campaign cannot truly live up to its potential.

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More Resources:

Image Credits

All screenshots taken by author, June 2020