Agency Account Suspended All Profiles

[Markinuity]

I work for a marketing agency, and two days ago, we switched to an agency account to manage our clients' profiles. This morning, all the accounts associated with that account (about 20) are showing as suspended. The email we received says that our agency account was suspended due to policy violations. We have never had an issue with this account previously. What steps should we take next?

 

[AndreaBerens]

Hey,

I am very sorry to hear about your experience, and unfortunately, it is not going to be an easy task to get your listings up and running again. It sounds like you have gotten an account-level suspension. This happens when Google believes there was some type of spammy activity coming from a manager or user account that is associated with the listings, not the actual businesses themselves.

There is more information about this policy here: Business Profile third-party policies - Google Business Profile Help

In order to fix this, you are going to have to determine which manager account is associated with the assumed spammy activity. Sometimes you can see who's account received the suspension by trying to login here with your Google account: Local Guides Connect. If your account is the issue, you'll see a large banner saying you've been removed from the Local Guides program. You can also try this link Account settings: Your browser is not supported. it will tell you if your account has restrictions on it

Next, you will have to disassociate that account from all of the listings and fill out a reinstatement request for each one. By following this guide that explains the process of reinstatement: Fix suspended or disabled profiles - Google Business Profile Help

I hope this helps,
Andrea

 

[RankUpRise]

Hey,

I am very sorry to hear about your experience, and unfortunately, it is not going to be an easy task to get your listings up and running again. It sounds like you have gotten an account-level suspension. This happens when Google believes there was some type of spammy activity coming from a manager or user account that is associated with the listings, not the actual businesses themselves.

There is more information about this policy here: Business Profile third-party policies - Google Business Profile Help

In order to fix this, you are going to have to determine which manager account is associated with the assumed spammy activity. Sometimes you can see who's account received the suspension by trying to login here with your Google account: Local Guides Connect. If your account is the issue, you'll see a large banner saying you've been removed from the Local Guides program. You can also try this link Account settings: Your browser is not supported. it will tell you if your account has restrictions on it

Next, you will have to disassociate that account from all of the listings and fill out a reinstatement request for each one. By following this guide that explains the process of reinstatement: Fix suspended or disabled profiles - Google Business Profile Help

I hope this helps,
Andrea

Hi Andrea,
Thank you for your detailed response. It means keeping multiple listings within the agency mail is risky. Should we remove clients business profile once the optimization is done, or what is the best practice?

 

[Stefan Somborac]

I'll add one tweak to what @AndreaBerens posted above: Once you've identified and removed the bad user from all the profiles, start the appeal process for one of them. On the form where you attach your proof, there is an option to make a bulk submission (for cases involving 10+ locations) down at the bottom. Use that!

 

[Markinuity]

Hi Andrea!

Thank you so much for your response! So we had multiple profiles that we had access to under a team email account. We created an agency account to move all the profiles over on Wednesday. So far we only moved four. This morning all the profiles under the team email were suspended. And using the link you sent, we determined that the team email is the flagged account. It has never had an issue before until we created the agency account.

Our agency owner contacted Joy, and she recommended not appealing and contacting support instead. However, we're stuck in a bot loop and can't get ahold of a real person.

Would it be better to finish adding all the accounts to the agency account and then remove the team email, or should we just remove the team email first? And then is there any way you know of to get a faster reinstatement than using the appeals process? Or else just a direct contact for Google Support? We've posted on the Google Help forum as well with no response.

We're willing to go the appeals route if we must, but are hoping there may be a faster way to get these up. We're very familiar with the Google guidelines, and all of the accounts are following those, so we know it's just from the agency account set up.

And thank you, Stefan! If we need to go that route, we'll be sure to do that!

 

[JS Girard]

I am definitely bookmarking this because I don't think I have seen such specific guidance for this kind of situation anywhere before.

 

[RMortis]

I am definitely bookmarking this because I don't think I have seen such specific guidance for this kind of situation anywhere before.

Me, as well.

On the last webinar, it seemed to me there were three trains of thought from the presenters and commenters

1 -- Create an agency account at all costs.
2 -- Agency accounts are fine
3 -- Whatever you do, don't create an agency account unless you want your profiles suspended. That one came from a commenter. I remember because it kind of put a scare into me and I wrote it down!

 

[JS Girard]

Me, as well.

On the last webinar, it seemed to me there were three trains of thought from the presenters and commenters

1 -- Create an agency account at all costs.
2 -- Agency accounts are fine
3 -- Whatever you do, don't create an agency account unless you want your profiles suspended. That one came from a commenter. I remember because it kind of put a scare into me and I wrote it down!

on #3, if the account is suspended, it makes no difference to the GBPs inside whether it's agency or not so I'm not sure what they're on about.

 

[RMortis]

on #3, if the account is suspended, it makes no difference to the GBPs inside whether it's agency or not so I'm not sure what they're on about.

Is that what happened to the original poster?

 

[JS Girard]

Is that what happened to the original poster?

I can't imagien what else. We also have both agency and regular accounts (complicated reasons) and Ican tell it also makes no difference to the suspension risks at optimisation or down the line. Account age makes a certain difference, but accoutn type? None at all.

 

[allandanilomd]

Wow that's the kind of issues that I loved when I was working in GMB Help Center back in the day. So complex and absurd that make them so tasty haha

When it comes to account level suspensions, you never know what event triggers the suspension... it can be just the agency setup, as mentioned. But it can also be related with other activity for instance in Google Maps, or the fact that your domain is in risk, maybe you manage also some conflictive categories (locksmiths, taxis, etc.).

Looking forward to know how it goes.

Best of luck!

 

[adammaxum]

to me it sounds clear as day that the switch is what triggered the account suspension, not any specific listings within the account.

I would not be surprised if it was just an auto suspension thing that triggered with the change and google support will need to look at, realize it was a mistake, and just reenable the account as a whole.