9 Reasons a GMB profile can get suspended

[James Watt]

Another great Search Engine Land post from Joy Hawkins . This is a great read, both to bone up on how to troubleshoot a potentially problematic listing, but also to make sure you've got your best practices down. it's especially important if you ever need to ask Google for help, since as Joy mentioned, if you've got an issue you didn't notice and you ask for help either on the forum or by calling into Google support, you can inadvertently crash your listing when they take a closer look at your profile. Do you have any potential hidden land-mines in any of your listings? Find out!

I see threads over at the Google My Business forum all the time from panicked business owners or SEOs who have logged into Google My Business to see a big red “Suspended” banner at the top of the page. The Google My Business guidelines have a very long list of things you shouldn’t do, but some offenses are much more serious than others.
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The point about controlled industries (guns, in the article) was a new one for me. Anyone else have any favorite takeaways, or points Joy wrote about that you've had to deal with out in the wild?

 

[Scott Rawlins]

Just finished reading it and was coming here to post. Thanks for sharing it. Yet another great article from Joy. Luckily, I have not had to deal with any hard suspensions for any clients that I have taken on yet. I'm sure that day will come soon enough though.

 

[James Watt]

Haha, yeah, I was surprised I made it here first, I knew if I didn't post it someone else would! Joy's articles are always well worth the read.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Great minds think alike you two. I was hoping someone would post Joy's great article!
Thanks James! (And Scott for thinking of it too!)

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

I noticed there wasn't a mention of a spammy description. I know it's not shown much of anywhere, but I thought it mattered anyway. Is that no longer considered a suspendable offence?

And yes, it's another great article. She's getting awfully good at them

 

[Linda Buquet]

I noticed there wasn't a mention of a spammy description. I know it's not shown much of anywhere, but I thought it mattered anyway. Is that no longer considered a suspendable offence?

Hi Margaret,

To my knowledge descriptions never caused suspension. I have directly seen them cause ranking penalties and have proof. (But others disagree.) And also every time I've seen a case it was pre-pigeon. Post pigeon I saw a lot of super spammy listings that rank well and were not penalized.

Anyone see any surprises here?
Anything else to add?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Yeah I'm with Linda - I've never seen it result in a suspension. Not even sure it does anything harmful or good anymore. I basically think description = useless these days.

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

Thank you Linda & Joy - my brain must have mixed up suspension and penalty.

Does anyone know if a poorly implemented SSL certificate causes problems? By poorly implemented I mean some browsers / protocols might have trouble or fail. I have seen articles that indicate you won't get the boost you're after, but nothing about penalties per se.

 

[theitsage]

A SSL certificate gives you the extra boost, all else being equal. This only effects organic search though. I highly doubt it would do anything to the Local pack.

There's one competitor in my area whose website has been offline for nearly a month. He dropped almost immediately off organic search but his GMB listing is still doing fine.

Thank you Linda & Joy - my brain must have mixed up suspension and penalty.

Does anyone know if a poorly implemented SSL certificate causes problems? By poorly implemented I mean some browsers / protocols might have trouble or fail. I have seen articles that indicate you won't get the boost you're after, but nothing about penalties per se.