Can no longer fully edit GBP in SERPs - tools suite missing

[SmallBizGeek]

For some time, I noticed that business profiles were edited directly from SERPs. Enter your business name or "google business profile" or certain keywords to trigger the suite of tools, such as "ask for reviews", "q & a" etc.

That is no longer the case for me. In fact, I'm going round in circles trying to figure out where Google has hidden all these tools.

All I see is "You manage these Business Profiles", but clicking them just sends me circles. Clicking them simply performs a Google search of the business name and shows regular SERPs. As the owner of my own profile, I should be able to see the entire suite of tools as I have done in the past.

It's maddening, because only a few weeks ago I was teaching a client how to do this exact thing with no trouble at all. Why would it be that it is suddenly a problem for my own business profile?

I can still edit certain information on my profile by other means, but it is not at all the full experience. I cannot even find my short GBP link - the one you would use to get reviews, or just link directly to the profile itself. Very bizarre. Got to be a bug, right?

 

[JS Girard]

Does the business.google.com URL work for you?

 

[Brian - TGL]

If you are logged in to more than one Google Account, even if you switch to the account that you manage those profiles with, when you click the "View Profile" button, it opens in a new window and will often default to the first Google account you logged into on that browser. Take a look at the profile icon in the top right after the new window opens and see if it's the same account as the top right of the window you launched it from.

I always use profiles in Chrome so there is only 1 Google account logged in.

 

[SmallBizGeek]

Does the business.google.com URL work for you?

Yes but I don't believe all the tools are available there

 

[JS Girard]

My base theory is that the number of profiles in your account passed a threshold causing you to rewind to the agency-like dashboard, so direct access is a lot harder to trigger. As I understand it, direct access is mostly meant with the "my business" keyword and similar to go to a single profile. It's always been a little haphazard with multiple GBPs in the account.

 

[SmallBizGeek]

I'm clearly a manager on multiple profiles but I don't see any options to remove myself like I could have done before. Why does Google have to make everything so complicated with these terrible decisions?

 

[Brian - TGL]

My base theory is that the number of profiles in your account passed a threshold causing you to rewind to the agency-like dashboard, so direct access is a lot harder to trigger. As I understand it, direct access is mostly meant with the "my business" keyword and similar to go to a single profile. It's always been a little haphazard with multiple GBPs in the account.

As soon as you have more than 1 location in an account you get the agency-style dashboard, I just happened to be testing that yesterday.

 

[SmallBizGeek]

I've never had that before and I've been a manager of multiple profiles for years. This is the first time I've seen this. All my settings are missing. What is the point of this? I cannot administrate anything in a meaningful way.

 

[SmallBizGeek]

This makes no sense at all. I have less than 10 profiles, and I can't remove myself as a manager from any of them. I'm desperate to revert back to what it was like before. It feels like I have my hands tied behind my back right now.

 

[SmallBizGeek]

I'm simply not able to manage access on my own business. This is so strange. For years this has never been a problem, but it's just not possible for me to add another manager to my own business profile. I'm reading this guide but cannot actually progress past the first step How to Add & Remove Managers from Your Google Business Profile - Sterling Sky Inc

 

[SmallBizGeek]

Solved it! It was the Keywords Everywhere extension! I disabled it and everything I needed appeared in the SERPs the way it used to.

 

[JoyHawkins]

If you ever run into this again, try Update your browser to manage your Business Profile - Google Business Profile Help

That URL should always work, regardless of how many locations you have in there.