GBP Agency/Organization account deprecated?

[allanzen]

Hello, all!

First post to share some info and maybe get your insights about it.

The other day I posted a tweet related to a user consult in the GBP Community, since I don't have many followers nor I'm very active in Twitter (X), I'm sharing it with you so you can share with me your thoughts.

Unable to Register My Agency for Google My Business Agency/Organization Account - Google Business Profile Community

Basiclly, the user ReasonableCloud mentioned in a #GBP community thread. He was trying to create an Organization Account and GBP's agents replied to him that the organisation/agency account option is deprecated.

Do you guys have any info about this? Any official notification from Google?

Cheers!
Allan

 

[JoyHawkins]

I definitely haven't heard anything from Google about this but will ask them and let you know!

 

[JS Girard]

I'm pretty sure I've seen announcements about that. Because the multi-GBP dashboard comes back past a certain number of GBPs anyway, google does not create new agency accounts anymore. Given how inconvenient it can be to get the clients to use the GBP group numbers instead of emails to add agency accounts, I think that's a wise move.

 

[allanzen]

Thank you both for your replies. Let's see how it develops.

Cheers!

 

[Lahsa H.]

Oh... for agencies it will be a pain. Are there any updates about the case with agency accounts? i didn't here anything about it

 

[JoyHawkins]

No, I don't think they are going away.

 

[Lahsa H.]

No, I don't think they are going away.

Awesome! thank you

 

[Lluc]

Hi! I've been trying to create an Agency account for the last two weeks and it was not possible, the same message kept appearing every time I tried.

I've contacted support, and after several emails and an "interesting" call with Google Support, I received this answer.

"As per our discussion on call, I can confirm the process of creating an agency account has been deprecated."

Would it be possible to confirm this is true? Also, the GBP API documentation says that in order to request access you need an Agency account, is this so?

Many thanks.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Luc,

That is super interesting. I'm going to ask Google about that and I'll report back here with any findings.

 

[Lluc]

Hi Luc,

That is super interesting. I'm going to ask Google about that and I'll report back here with any findings.

Hi Collin,

Have you heard from Google about the Agency accounts?

Ben Fisher is also reporting this other issue with Agency accounts:

 

[Marcin Karwowski]

Hi Collin,

Have you heard from Google about the Agency accounts?

Ben Fisher is also reporting this other issue with Agency accounts:

I confirm and we have the same thing. We have not received and cannot accept invitations from customers for several days.

 

[Lluc]

Hi @Colan Nielsen,

Did you hear back from Google about this issue?

Thank you!

 

[Marcin Karwowski]

Hi @Colan Nielsen,

Did you hear back from Google about this issue?

Thank you!

Hi,

As far as I know, the problem was resolved at the end of December.

Are you still having problems with this and not receiving invitations?

 

[Lluc]

Hi Marcin,

Yes, we are still not able to create an agency account.
Also, GBP Support keeps replying that the Agency accounts have been deprecated and cannot help us.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

I haven't heard back on the issue of support telling people agency accounts are being deprecated. I have asked for an update.

 

[Lluc]

Hi Colan,

Thank you very much!

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

@Lluc or @Colan Nielsen, any updates that you could share please? I was just trying to setup an agency account and receiving the same error yesterday and today (attached). We've been managing our client GBPs a different way for years, but recently needed an agency account for managing a larger franchisee client. I read an interesting recommended answer on Google's forum (the english is a bit broken) which I found a bit unbelievable but it was posted by a Diamond Product Expert: Rules & experiences with "Agency / Organisation accounts" - Google Business Profile Community

The google account we are trying to use is not managing any GBPs, it is a brand new email address. However, we do have other google accounts on the same domain, as the email address trying to be used. For example we are trying to use agency.gbp@ourdomain.com which is receiving the attached error, but we also have other email addresses on the same domain for directly managing other GBPs, such as "seo.client1@ourdomain.com" which according to the recommended answer above, is suggested as a cause for the error.

Certainly if this is the cause, it must be a recent issue? I am a bit concerned because there are GBP API features that have been deprecated which often is a harbinger of things to come. Just like with the old GBP management interface, there were numerous API calls that were deprecated prior to the NMX rollout.

Hoping you have some additional information to share

 

[Lluc]

Hi @JeffClevelandTN ,

Not much from my side, I followed up a few times with Google Support and they kept saying that Agency accounts are not supported. As far as I know, there have been no announcements from Google.

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

Hi @JeffClevelandTN ,

Not much from my side, I followed up a few times with Google Support and they kept saying that Agency accounts are not supported. As far as I know, there have been no announcements from Google.

Thank you for the feedback!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

@JeffClevelandTN if you want to create a new post at the GBP forum and DM me the link I will look into this. I never heard back on my original escalation.