Recent content by Stefan Somborac

Looks like it was spotted a few weeks ago by @Digital Jedi.

In early October, I was given the option to verify a profile with a government ID. The exact wording reads: Submit an Identity Verification Upload a photo of your government ID Your ID is only used for verification and won't be shown publicly This is the second new verification method I’ve...

@Point Dance - To add some detail: The review attacks that I'm seeing get removed automatically involve a large number of negative reviews (like 10 or more) every day. At that volume, it's easy for an algorithm to spot the problem because it's so far outside whatever the typical pattern is. In...

In early September, @BenFisher posted on LinkedIn that he had been given the option to verify a Business Profile by phone, email and photo! Google is pretty good about keeping the GBP Help Center documents current, but this new photo option still hasn’t appeared on “Verify your business on...

@Atul Sharma - See if this answers your question: https://localsearchforum.com/threads/how-to-video-verify-an-sab.62347/

I suspect that sometime in the last 12-18 months (roughly), Google really polished an algorithm that detects 1-star review attacks. From the small number of cases I’ve helped in the community forum, my recommendation to wait a few days for the algo to clean up the attack seemed to work. I went...

I happen to be working on a big account-level suspension right now and found evidence that backs up the opening post. The screenshot below shows the status of 3 GBPs. On the two suspended profiles, the restricted email account is an owner. That same email is a user on the live profile, but only...

Hey @JS Girard - I think there's a mistake in that statement. If you close the account of a manager on a GBP, the GBP won't be deleted. It will remain under the control of the Primary Owner. The user list will show an icon beside the deleted user account that looks like this.

@JS Girard - Great question! The article uses "We may suspend or disable Business Profiles..." and "Your account may be restricted when you violate our policy." So, "suspend" for the GBP and "restricted" for the user account. They even combine that into a sentence: "As a result of an account...

I had heard a rumour that only when a GBP OWNER account gets suspended does the profile get suspended. If a MANAGER account gets suspended, the GBP is fine. I recently spotted this in Google's suspension help doc, making me think the rumour is probably correct: Yet another good argument for...

I want to share my personal findings here because this is a question I see debated from time to time. Short answer: both OWNERS and MANAGERS can verify a profile. In the Help Center documentation, Google doesn’t use the labels “owner” and “manager” when covering this topic. Instead, they use...

@wcssderek - Haven't seen it in a while. The few cases I handled were easily solved by adding the URLs back. Google accepted them, and they've been in place now for several months. Seems like a pointless exercise.

No, I've never seen that. Really? Any idea how long that lag is?

After a suspension appeal is resolved, Google has been sending an email that reads: “You may still be able to verify your business by submitting a verification video. We will send you a separate email with further information.” That separate email never arrives. As for the profile's status...

In the last month or two, I've had a couple of GBP suspensions reinstated with the profile unverified. I mentioned it to a work colleague who handles a lot of suspensions, and he says he noticed the same thing. I brought it up in another forum, and several people there were seeing it too...