vtm-toronto
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- Jun 7, 2024
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Hi,
My GBP was suspended June 5 after I tried to verify an address change. I had the address listed and I wanted to move it to our registered business address and the place I do most of the client work - my home office (where I receive clients). One is a shop with our equipment and a customer service office, and the other is my home office where I do the vast majority of sales/management. We do have general public to both locations for a range of reasons like consulting on larger projects etc. I thought we could only have one profile.
I tried to verify the new address with the video tool, but it went for about 2-3 weeks in "pending" mode. I thought I would try to suggest an edit to our profile, and to a duplicate (that we've been trying to kill for years) moving them to the right address after waiting for weeks. The goal was to get them all merged and gone, since the duplicate has caused problems for forever. The next morning, we got an email notifying us that our profile was suspended. Ironically, the duplicate profile was moved to the address I had been trying to verify.. it's just empty, with no reviews, nothing.
It's been 11 days since we submitted the appeal and I expect it will be denied. It was around 530am when I got the email, and I didn't realize what I was getting into. I was only able to add a tax form from the federal government with the business name and address, and my personal lease. From all I've read, this won't be enough. My business has become crippled as a result. I submitted a quest to Google Local Ads to update the registered business address to the correct one as well, and they seemed to be fine with that and its' processing. We also submitted the same paperwork to Google Ads and were verified there. We have gone through so many different layers of google verification over the years, and this is the first problem we have ever had but now it could end us.
We are a seasonal business (tree care), in our fourth year and after the fire last year it was critical for us to recover.. and we were. But now we are totally stuck and have no new business coming. I know these suspensions can be resolved quickly, but sometimes they take months and sometimes they can't be. I cannot wait weeks or months to see what happens - I will lose my business, my job, and my life savings and have to lay off our staff of 8 if this continues for much longer.
Here are my questions:
0. Does any one have recommended actions to take? I hired a company (named after a brachiating mammal) after my appeal but I am unclear as to whether or not they are the best support. Especially now that I've done much more research and realized the volume of mistakes I've made without even realizing how complicated and nuanced everything is for business profiles.
1. They have asked me to claim the duplicate located at the correct address. I guess one of their staff did, and now want me to confirm it with phone verification. Is this a good idea? I just feel like a lot of the stuff I have read suggests that this could be really confusing to the current process depending on what they want to do. Most of the other posts I have read involve only aspects of my situation, so I honestly don't know. If they want to get rid of the profile (by claiming it?) could we lose an opportunity to try to ask google to move the main/original/suspended profile info/reviews from the main suspended one to the duplicate? (similar to the recommended steps in 3 Steps to Move Your Service Area Business Google Business Profile Without Destroying Your Ranking)
2. If we do claim it, should I try to make another request to google maps to move the profile and reviews information? Or should I wait to hear about the appeal? Or should we try to have it removed?
3. Should I have two addresses, or should I only have one, or should I be a service area business even though I need people to know our address? My home office is actually in one of the areas of people we service, whereas the shop address is in an industrial area far from our service area and its made it very hard in the past year.
4. What else can I do to address this issue? I wouldn't have an issue with "wait and see" if there was any sense of a reasonable timeline for response and resolution - the world isn't perfect and I made mistakes. But I'm living with an existential terror right now - my wife is on maternity leave for our newborn, I have a toddler as well.. we have no new work coming in.
I am open to hearing I should just pay someone to help me - I am not trying to get free advice so much as understand what / who / how to best act on this ASAP and get a brief understanding of the best way forward as there is so much conflicting advice and info.
Thank you for your time and assistance.
My GBP was suspended June 5 after I tried to verify an address change. I had the address listed and I wanted to move it to our registered business address and the place I do most of the client work - my home office (where I receive clients). One is a shop with our equipment and a customer service office, and the other is my home office where I do the vast majority of sales/management. We do have general public to both locations for a range of reasons like consulting on larger projects etc. I thought we could only have one profile.
I tried to verify the new address with the video tool, but it went for about 2-3 weeks in "pending" mode. I thought I would try to suggest an edit to our profile, and to a duplicate (that we've been trying to kill for years) moving them to the right address after waiting for weeks. The goal was to get them all merged and gone, since the duplicate has caused problems for forever. The next morning, we got an email notifying us that our profile was suspended. Ironically, the duplicate profile was moved to the address I had been trying to verify.. it's just empty, with no reviews, nothing.
It's been 11 days since we submitted the appeal and I expect it will be denied. It was around 530am when I got the email, and I didn't realize what I was getting into. I was only able to add a tax form from the federal government with the business name and address, and my personal lease. From all I've read, this won't be enough. My business has become crippled as a result. I submitted a quest to Google Local Ads to update the registered business address to the correct one as well, and they seemed to be fine with that and its' processing. We also submitted the same paperwork to Google Ads and were verified there. We have gone through so many different layers of google verification over the years, and this is the first problem we have ever had but now it could end us.
We are a seasonal business (tree care), in our fourth year and after the fire last year it was critical for us to recover.. and we were. But now we are totally stuck and have no new business coming. I know these suspensions can be resolved quickly, but sometimes they take months and sometimes they can't be. I cannot wait weeks or months to see what happens - I will lose my business, my job, and my life savings and have to lay off our staff of 8 if this continues for much longer.
Here are my questions:
0. Does any one have recommended actions to take? I hired a company (named after a brachiating mammal) after my appeal but I am unclear as to whether or not they are the best support. Especially now that I've done much more research and realized the volume of mistakes I've made without even realizing how complicated and nuanced everything is for business profiles.
1. They have asked me to claim the duplicate located at the correct address. I guess one of their staff did, and now want me to confirm it with phone verification. Is this a good idea? I just feel like a lot of the stuff I have read suggests that this could be really confusing to the current process depending on what they want to do. Most of the other posts I have read involve only aspects of my situation, so I honestly don't know. If they want to get rid of the profile (by claiming it?) could we lose an opportunity to try to ask google to move the main/original/suspended profile info/reviews from the main suspended one to the duplicate? (similar to the recommended steps in 3 Steps to Move Your Service Area Business Google Business Profile Without Destroying Your Ranking)
2. If we do claim it, should I try to make another request to google maps to move the profile and reviews information? Or should I wait to hear about the appeal? Or should we try to have it removed?
3. Should I have two addresses, or should I only have one, or should I be a service area business even though I need people to know our address? My home office is actually in one of the areas of people we service, whereas the shop address is in an industrial area far from our service area and its made it very hard in the past year.
4. What else can I do to address this issue? I wouldn't have an issue with "wait and see" if there was any sense of a reasonable timeline for response and resolution - the world isn't perfect and I made mistakes. But I'm living with an existential terror right now - my wife is on maternity leave for our newborn, I have a toddler as well.. we have no new work coming in.
I am open to hearing I should just pay someone to help me - I am not trying to get free advice so much as understand what / who / how to best act on this ASAP and get a brief understanding of the best way forward as there is so much conflicting advice and info.
Thank you for your time and assistance.
GBP can be tricky to navigate as you have found out and we are here to help! Let me know the decision the appeal tool gives, and if there is no decision within 2 or so weeks also let me know as that is too long (typically the tool take 3 - 5 days to give a decision).
