Hi, I manage SEO for a long-established local tree service business that has been active on GBP and Google Ads for over a decade. A month ago we got a random notification that our listing had been disabled due to reason: "This Business Profile has been removed by Google".
Since that wasn't much help, here are a couple theories as to what might have triggered this:
The business was originally legally registered out of the owner's home 30 years ago. This was the address that the profile was verified on many many years ago (back when they were called Google Place Pages). Because they serve customers at their own properties and do not accept customers at their "office", the address was hidden from the very beginning. About 5 years ago, the owner moved homes and updated some key legal details about their business entity:
- They created a corporation with a variant of the main business name (this was done for business reasons to be able to nest multiple entities under the corp)
- They updated the legal address to a PO Box
- The registered a DBA (fictitious business name) for the main business name, which has both the PO Box AND the owner's NEW home address
I am thinking that Google did some kind of automated audit, figured out that the address originally verified for the listing was no longer the legal registered address for the business and disabled it, thinking we were trying to spam or scam or game the system.
Another theory, which might be related:
A duplicate business listing for the business popped up in a nearby town (within our set service area) out of nowhere about a year ago. The phone number matched the businesses' main phone number. The address is random and street view shows no business there. I ignored this listing because it didn't really seem to be harming us - didn't see it in rankings, no reviews, barely any info. But maybe Google somehow got confused and disabled our main listing thinking it was a duplicate of this random listing. This random listing is still active - unverified. I figure I can't do anything about this listing (report as duplicate) until I get our main listing back up and active.
I have updated the disabled GBP address to the owner's new home address and submitted an appeal detailing the situation and providing:
- A digital copy of fictitious business name license showing the corporation name (variant of main business name), the main business name as the DBA, and the owner's new home address
- A digital copy of state contractor's license showing the corporation name and the main business name as the DBA
- A screenshot of the state business registry showing the corporation name in good standing with the PO Box and the owner's new home address.
Despite providing this information and documentation, our appeal was denied with no additional explanation.
Because of the DBA and the PO Box, I have very little documentation that connects the main business name with the owner's new home address.
I know historically we need to avoid using PO Boxes as addresses. So what would you do in this situation? The client is losing thousands of dollars each week that this listing is disabled, potentially undoing hundreds of hours of hard work over the years following Google's rules, paying into their ad program, and serving their local community and customers.
HELP!
Since that wasn't much help, here are a couple theories as to what might have triggered this:
The business was originally legally registered out of the owner's home 30 years ago. This was the address that the profile was verified on many many years ago (back when they were called Google Place Pages). Because they serve customers at their own properties and do not accept customers at their "office", the address was hidden from the very beginning. About 5 years ago, the owner moved homes and updated some key legal details about their business entity:
- They created a corporation with a variant of the main business name (this was done for business reasons to be able to nest multiple entities under the corp)
- They updated the legal address to a PO Box
- The registered a DBA (fictitious business name) for the main business name, which has both the PO Box AND the owner's NEW home address
I am thinking that Google did some kind of automated audit, figured out that the address originally verified for the listing was no longer the legal registered address for the business and disabled it, thinking we were trying to spam or scam or game the system.
Another theory, which might be related:
A duplicate business listing for the business popped up in a nearby town (within our set service area) out of nowhere about a year ago. The phone number matched the businesses' main phone number. The address is random and street view shows no business there. I ignored this listing because it didn't really seem to be harming us - didn't see it in rankings, no reviews, barely any info. But maybe Google somehow got confused and disabled our main listing thinking it was a duplicate of this random listing. This random listing is still active - unverified. I figure I can't do anything about this listing (report as duplicate) until I get our main listing back up and active.
I have updated the disabled GBP address to the owner's new home address and submitted an appeal detailing the situation and providing:
- A digital copy of fictitious business name license showing the corporation name (variant of main business name), the main business name as the DBA, and the owner's new home address
- A digital copy of state contractor's license showing the corporation name and the main business name as the DBA
- A screenshot of the state business registry showing the corporation name in good standing with the PO Box and the owner's new home address.
Despite providing this information and documentation, our appeal was denied with no additional explanation.
Because of the DBA and the PO Box, I have very little documentation that connects the main business name with the owner's new home address.
I know historically we need to avoid using PO Boxes as addresses. So what would you do in this situation? The client is losing thousands of dollars each week that this listing is disabled, potentially undoing hundreds of hours of hard work over the years following Google's rules, paying into their ad program, and serving their local community and customers.
HELP!
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