Updates for 2024

To reinstate a suspended Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) in 2024, the process remains similar to previous years, with some nuanced updates. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Identify the Cause: First, figure out why your listing was suspended. Common reasons include:

   • Mismatched business information (e.g., Name, Address, Phone number).
   • Use of virtual offices, co-working spaces, or incorrect categories.
   • Keyword stuffing in your business name or description.
   • Sharing a physical address with another business, especially if it’s a service area business (SAB) source source 2.

2. Fix Violations: Before submitting an appeal, address the issues that triggered the suspension. Update your business information to ensure compliance with Google’s guidelines, such as using an exact business name, ensuring consistent NAP details across platforms, and removing any prohibited content source.

3. Submit an Appeal: After resolving the issues, use the Google Business Profile appeal form. Make sure to document all changes, including the listing URL or CID, and provide any supporting evidence, such as photos of your business signage or proof of business registration source.

4. Stay Patient: Depending on the complexity of your case and the backlog at Google, the reinstatement process can take time. If necessary, you can contact Google support via social media or call their helpline source source 2.

Following these steps ensures a smooth appeal process and maximizes your chances of getting your listing reinstated.

Original Article:

If you’re reading this, I know exactly how you feel right now. Whether you’re a business owner or an agency representing a business, it’s painful to have your listing suspended. The worst part? You know you are missing out on business right now as customers pass by what would have been your listing. Let me assure you, you can get your listing back. Of course, if you’ve done something shady (you know who you are) then you will likely never see your listing again. This post will tell you exactly how to use Google’s official mechanisms (with three things you can do right now) to get your GMB (short for Google My Business) listing reinstated. Before you’re tempted to start fixing the problem now, make sure you don’t miss Step Zero, which is absolutely key to a good resolution.

Why Was My GMB Listing Suspended?

A suspended listing is undoubtedly frustrating. One of the most annoying aspects is the lack of a clear answer regarding how your listing has violated Google’s algorithm. Whenever you make changes to your listing, Google uses automated tools to review those changes. Thus, when your listing is suspended, it indicates that some kind of automated flag has been triggered.

If Google were to disclose all the specific transgressions, it would only empower bad actors with more information about potential loopholes. Getting this type of suspension is akin to receiving a red-light camera ticket: you may not realize what you did wrong, but when the ticket arrives, you must accept that a computer has flagged you.

Fortunately, we have a fairly good understanding of some major transgressions that may have led to your suspension. There are two types of suspensions: hard suspension and soft suspension.

What is a “Hard” Google My Business Suspension?

A hard suspension is detrimental to your business. With a hard suspension, you can still access your GMB dashboard, but your listing is removed from Google Maps. Google issues hard suspensions when it suspects that a business listing is illegitimate for various reasons (which I will detail below).

Receiving a hard suspension feels awful; it’s like a false accusation that can keep you up at night with frustration and a sense of injustice. Practically, a hard suspension means:

• No reviews
• No messaging
• No listing in Google Knowledge Graph (the side panel that appears beside search results)
• No photos visible to searchers (although you can still add photos to your dashboard)

A hard suspension also removes your ability to message and be messaged by customers, eliminating the chance to answer quick questions. Additionally, it restricts your ability to receive or respond to reviews. Hard suspensions can lead to lost revenue, as customers searching for your business or services on maps will be unable to find you.

However, all hope is not lost. Google still provides access to your GMB dashboard, allowing you to identify the problem and attempt to resolve it. But remember, you must follow Step Zero.

What is a “Soft” Google My Business Suspension?

A soft suspension is less severe than a hard suspension. With a soft suspension, your listing remains visible on Google Maps, and customers can still find it, but you can no longer make edits to the listing. This may prevent you from updating your business information when necessary, so it’s crucial to address this issue promptly.

Ultimately, there are several possible reasons why your listing may have been suspended, along with various methods to resolve the issue and lift the suspension.

1. Your listing was suspended due to quality issues
   It’s a sad day when you see this on your business.google.com dashboard. While “suspended due to quality issues” is the most generic reason you will hear, it may also be as detailed an answer as you will get. You will most often see this flag show up right after you make changes to your business information. If you change the NAPW (name, address, phone number, or website) of your listing, you risk triggering a suspension. If you need to change that information, by all means change it. Wrong information can be just as harmful to your business image as a suspended listing, and you can fix wrong information right now. When you do make these changes, you will likely see a notification that recent changes are “pending review.” In general, you should not worry about changing your business listing information. Keeping up-to-date info is crucial for a positive customer experience. Some businesses may have a hard time passing this review, however. Locksmiths, plumbers, and a number of other home-service businesses are under very strict scrutiny from the algorithm. If your business deals in regulated goods, such as weapons, age-restricted goods, or things of that nature, expect to have a harder time making updates to your listing without triggering suspensions. If that’s you, take it slow, make sure you’re 100% accurate with any changes, and always remember Step Zero (have you heard that somewhere before…?).

2. You run a service area business (SAB) but display a physical address
   According to Google, in order to qualify for a Google My Business listing, a business must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours. If you don’t make contact with customers at your location, you should not display your address. Instead, your listing’s address should look like this: Service area business listing, with areas, but no location for customers to visit. If you’ve mistakenly left your address visible for your SAB, go ahead and change it, as long as you document the before and after (take a screenshot, write a note, or whatever). When you appeal to reinstate the listing, you can let Google know what you have changed to try to atone for your transgression.

3. Google suspects your business does not exist at its address
   One of the ways Google checks for business legitimacy is by looking for signage at the location. Think about it, they have 360-degree photos of basically every street in the world. They probably have a photo of your storefront. Not only that, they can read your signage from those pictures. If signage is not super clear at your location, you may need to send in photos of your signage for them to manually review (more about this below). For example, if your business is in a commercial high-rise, Google may be unable to detect your signage. If this is an issue for your business, I would recommend adding photos to the interior and exterior photo categories in your dashboard, and write a note about doing so for when you submit your appeal. Adding photos to your suspended GMB that show your business’s signage can’t hurt. Add photos under the “Interior” and “Exterior” categories that include pictures of your signage, physical logos on site, your business address, lobby or reception area, or whatever makes sense for your business.

4. Your business may have duplicate listings
   One client I was working for had two businesses, with similar names, on the same floor of an office building. While they offered different services (insurance vs. employee benefits), Google flagged them as duplicates. When we tried to resolve the issue, the various changes we made to the original listing ended up triggering a hard suspension. More commonly, there may just be two listings of your business. Here’s the thing: when Google can detect your signage, or when people check in to your business’s location using some sort of service, Google will often generate a listing for you. When you come along later and try to create a new listing for yourself, you may not realize a listing already exists. Worse, the old listing may already have reviews, photos, and business hours filled out. If you have reviews already, you almost certainly don’t want to lose those. Factors such as the number of reviews (and how positive the reviews are), as well as the age of your listing actually signal legitimacy to Google. After all, why would people review a non-existent business? Here’s what you need to know, though: duplicate listings can trigger a suspension for both locations. While it’s more common to see one of the locations marked as the duplicate (usually the newly created location), anything can happen, and so it’s best to check to see if your business is listed before creating a new listing. An existing listing that you don’t know about is probably unclaimed (if somebody else claimed your listing fraudulently, check out this support page from Google: ​Someone else verified my business). If you haven’t claimed your listing, do it now. Maybe that’s the step before Step Zero. … Step Minus-Zero(?): claim your listing. Claim any duplicate listings you can find too. It’s better to work on resolving a suspension on listings you own than to face the hassle of a fraudulent claim when somebody else snags it with bad intentions. An unclaimed Google My Business listing is vulnerable to being fraudulently claimed.

5. Step zero is document, document, document
   As I mention multiple times in this article, you must keep track of what changes you made, and when. Besides changes, you will want to note:

   • What you changed right before you were suspended
   • Major changes you’ve made in the past few weeks
   • Whether this is your first suspension or not
   • What you do after being suspended to try to fix the problem
   • And, most importantly, your listing’s map URL or dashboard URL

   If you have a short name for your business listing, then your g.page URL will lead to your listing. Example short name URL: https://g.page/truemarketingcanada. You will only be able to still see this listing if your account has a soft suspension. (Or no suspension… in which case, you’re all good!) What if you have a hard suspension? With a hard suspension, you will need to take a snapshot of your dashboard URL, since your listing has been taken down completely. Example dashboard URL: https://business.google.com/u/2/dashboard/l/02517933434768772652.

   Listing reinstated but all the reviews are gone?
   One of the key reasons you will want to keep track of this URL is in case you get your listing back, but all the reviews are gone. That’s right, lost reviews. Gone. But not gone for good it appears! Lost reviews are a huge issue. It’s a “trending issue” right now on the support forum, and it appears it’s the result of a technical issue on Google’s end. Google is severely backlogged right now. Once Google resolves this issue, the many lost reviews should all be restored. Take a snapshot of some of your reviews, and the total number, so you can show a Google support specialist later.

   Why would all the reviews be lost?
   When all of your reviews disappear upon reinstatement, it’s usually because you have been assigned a “new” listing, which has a new CID (Customer ID) number. For this reason, before you go about asking for a reinstatement (which, if you’re amazingly lucky, could happen quickly), you will want to record your current CID so you can ask Google to restore your reviews if the need arises. This is much easier done with a soft suspension. There are two ways:

   • View the page source of your maps listing, and search for the numeric string following “lodocid=” and preceding “#lrd” (thanks Margaret Ornsby! see this link for more detailed step-by-step instructions)
   • Use a time-saving add-on to Chrome (if you don’t mind using Chrome). I used Company Information in Google.

   How to find your CID from the page source of a maps listing
   If you absolutely cannot find your CID, send me a message on Facebook and I’ll take a crack at it. In the end, if it can’t be found, Google will probably be able to take care of restoring your reviews anyways (it’s in their interest, since they want to help searchers find the most relevant businesses), it may take a little longer without the CID though. Once you’ve documented everything you’re ready to start fixing the issues by moving on to step 1, and digging into forums a bit. Don’t forget to document changes as you make them (writing down a date will help you remember everything later—it sometimes takes days or even weeks for Google to get back to you).

6. Visit the support forums
   Looking at support forums (both official and unofficial) has two major benefits for you. First, you will be able to understand better what will need to be changed on your listing, if anything. Second, you will be able to describe your problem better to Google’s support team, and link to threads describing similar issues to your own so they can reference them. What this means for you is clearer requirements, and ultimately faster support, so your customers can start finding your business on the map sooner and you can worry about all the new business you’re getting.

   Two kinds of support forum for your suspended GMB
   The first forum is Google’s official support forum. Here’s a link: Google’s official support forum. The thing to know about this forum, however, is that you will not get responses from Google staff directly. Instead, Google uses this forum to crowd-source a filtering process. Volunteers, known as “Google Product Experts” (complete with their own gamified ranking system: silver, gold, platinum, etc.) respond to new threads. When the product experts deem an issue is worthy of attention by Google staff, they “escalate” the issue to Google.

   The second kind of support forum is the unofficial forum. There are a lot of these, but here’s one I really like: Local Search Forum. For you, these forums serve as repositories of “case studies” of people who have had issues with GMB suspensions and had them solved (or not!), and the steps they took to get there. Beyond this, you can feel free to post questions and get answers from people with valuable experience handling the same issues you are dealing with. Once you feel you have a good understanding of what you might have done wrong, you should move on to the next two steps. Note: I’ve read plenty of cases where suspensions seemed random or arbitrary. If that’s you, you’re not alone. It may feel hopeless, but it’s not. Your best bet is to move on to the next steps. You don’t need to do steps 2, 3, and 4. You can just use one of them. If you want to use more than one of these steps, that’s fine with me. However, you should know that Google does prefer if you stick to one line of communication.

7. Make an appeal to be reinstated
   At this point, you can decide how you want to make your appeal. You can either fill out the online form, reach out to their support team using social channels, or else call the helpline to speak with someone. Keep in mind that either way you are not going to get a direct line to someone at Google headquarters. You will have to deal with an automated form, a “someone” on social media, or else a semi-scripted outsourced call center. If you want to use the online form, just visit this address: Google’s online suspended listing reinstatement appeal form. If you’d rather take your chances on the phone, keep reading.

8. Reach out to Google on their social media channels
   Google usually responds fairly quickly to social channels. At least in my experience, though when things are busy you will always have a bit of a delay. You can find their Facebook page at facebook.com/googlemybusiness. Their Facebook page gives you the option to send a direct message to them using Facebook Messenger. This is the best way to get a hold of them through Facebook. GMB support got back to me in about 5 hours in this case. Not bad, all things considered. The other way to reach out to GMB support is through Twitter. Their X handle is @GoogleMyBiz. These social channels may be the right way for you to reach out. If you like calling, then check out the next option.

9. Call Google’s support line to speak with a human
   These two phone support links are a bit harder to find, but as of this publishing they still work. Google doesn’t make it perfectly clear from their support page. There’s actually two kinds of phone support pages that are still around. Unfortunately, you can’t navigate to these pages anymore without a direct link. And in fact, some of their toll-free numbers have been deprecated (see this announcement). What’s the difference between a specialist and an expert? Hard to say. Why not give them both a try.

   • Talk to a specialist
   • Have an expert contact me

   To be honest, the first option got me the fastest response. However, since this connects you with an outsourced call center, you will encounter some scripted lines. If you can handle that, then this might be the option for you.

10. If all else fails, try again from the ground up with a completely new listing
    This final, sad step should only be pursued if you have first gone through the entire appeal process and Google (note: not a volunteer on their behalf) has determined that your suspended listing will be completely removed for good, or remain suspended forever. This option means starting again entirely.

Starting over from nothing can be a frustrating experience, but it can also lead to new opportunities. By the afternoon, you might find yourself on the path to recovery and actively seeking reviews.

Steps to Create a New Listing

Before you create your new listing, follow these steps for your old listing:

1. Download Your Content Assets
   Access the dashboard for your old listing and download all content assets. This includes photos, copy, and any other relevant materials.

2. Delete the Old Listing
   Once you have saved everything, delete the old listing entirely.

3. Create a New Listing
   With your content saved, you can now create a new listing. If you have retained content from your old listing, this process should be relatively quick. Ensure you fill out the profile completely before verifying it.

4. Verification Process
   Verifying your listing after completing the profile can help you avoid the changes that led to the suspension of your previous listing.

5. Consider Using a New Gmail Account
   If you want to keep your options open, consider using a new Gmail account for your new listing. However, be cautious as this may risk creating another duplicate listing, exacerbating the original issue.

Rethinking Your Marketing Strategy

Feeling frustrated about a suspended listing? Are you aware that you might be missing out on business opportunities? These concerns highlight the importance of not overly relying on a marketing tool that you do not control. Ideally, most of your leads should come from your own website.

When you depend entirely on your Google My Business (GMB) listing for leads and revenue, you place your business in the hands of a faceless corporation that may not prioritize your livelihood.

A business listing should be a component of your digital marketing strategy—it’s highly effective—but it should not be the entirety of your strategy.

I recently spoke with a business owner whose listing was shut down, halting incoming calls. Fortunately, he had a robust website, strong branding for easy recognition, and business citations across the web. This allowed him to get his listing reinstated and resume operations.

The key takeaway is to build your brand primarily through your business website, rather than solely relying on your GMB listing. While GMB is a valuable tool, it should not be your only resource.

At True Marketing, we offer business website design and hosting with no upfront costs—you only pay for upkeep. This allows you to establish your online presence without the risk of a significant initial investment.

You can have a brand new website for as little as $56.50 a month, which can be a relief for businesses that feared they would need to spend thousands on a new site.

Curious? Check out our packages using the button below.

We also provide GMB optimization and troubleshooting services, so please reach out if you need further assistance.

Conclusion

Ultimately, your listing was suspended due to a misinterpretation by a computer algorithm regarding what constitutes “legitimacy.”

How do you overcome a computer with flawed sensibilities?

Be yourself, and strive to make a human connection with Google Support. Approach them with civility, reasonableness, and patience, and you will likely see your listing reinstated.

If you found this information helpful, please leave a comment or take a moment to rate our business listing. We appreciate your engagement and look forward to incorporating your questions into our FAQ section.

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