30 day review restriction

[redrocket39]

Hello, here's hoping someone can help with this. I manage over 7500 GBP locations for the Post Office in the UK.
Recently we've been asking (not incentivising!) customers to leave G reviews with some success.
But today i received this email -


The problem here of course is that G isn't telling me which location is restricted, so i have no way of fixing the problem. Naturally I asked G Support for some more info
Here's their response;

"Greetings from Google Business Profile Support. I hope you are doing well.

This email is regarding the business profiles.

I completely understand you'd like to know the specific business profile name. However, unfortunately we cannot say the exact business name.

The best I suggest you is to follow the link and you might receive an update from the concerned team.

I sincerely apologize for not being able to help you this time around. I hope this communication helps clarify the process. I appreciate your kind support and understanding in this matter."

So I'm stuck. I know we have a problem somewhere, but i don't know where. And G doesn't want to tell me. Following the link as they suggest just takes me back to the support page.

And my fear is that the sanction might spread to other listings as they are all in the same GBP account
Any suggestions gratefully received!

Andy

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Andy! This is only the second instance I have seen where Google is sending these notifications out. We are still trying to understand it.

Check out this thread where some brainstorming has happened around it - Reviews Completely removed (including stars) from GBP & Rankings Gone | Google Business Profile (GBP) & Google Maps

 

[mblumenthal]

I have some experience with this. It happens in several situations but usually when there is a significant influx of reviews to a location due to a fake review attack or publicity. For example a location shows up in the news and a political sh!tst0rm occurs resulting in bad reviews. Or because Google thinks that the location is likely to get hit with an attack like in the case of Ukranian businesses at the start of the war or pregnancy care centers in the US in the wake of the Roe v. Wade. It is usually driven algorithmically by a dramatic increase in attempts to leave a review in a short time. Although it can also be a manual action.

This sanction is NOT a sanction against the account but a limit on receiving on a given listing. Once lifted things should return to normal. Or they have in the cases that I have seen.

It might be a result of your asking for reviews or it might be the result of some sort of attack. If you can figure out which location, you can escalate via the GBP forum (drop the link here) and we can escalate to see if Google is willing to clarify the situation.