Do I Need a Dedicated Google Account to Report the Bad Guys?

[joegrape]

Hi Everyone,

I'm Richard. New to the forum, and to local SEO specifically.

I'm helping a friend who owns a boutique web design agency set up an online marketing practice for his clients. Part of that practice will be a local SEO offering.

It has become obvious that regular GMB spam fighting will need to be part of our local SEO offering. To that end, I'm interested in best practices. Specifically, do local SEO practitioners have a dedicated account through which they only submit suggested edits and redressal forms?

The reason I ask this is I don't have a clear understanding of what information Google makes public, or available to the complainee, about the person filing the complaint when one submits a suggested edit or redressal form. To protect my friend's agency and its clients from any kind of retribution, my thinking is we need to have a Google account not connected in any way to the agency or its clients.

What are your thoughts on this?

And, has anyone actually experienced blowback from reporting malicious players to Google?

Thanks in advance!

Richard Hoy
(aka joegrape)

 

[Tim Colling]

To protect my friend's agency and its clients from any kind of retribution, my thinking is we need to have a Google account not connected in any way to the agency or its clients.

What are your thoughts on this?

That's one way that we do reporting, but we're probably being overly cautious.

And, has anyone actually experienced blowback from reporting malicious players to Google?

No.

 

[joegrape]

Thanks, Tim!