Help/advice with a business that has 50+ 'locations'.

[siwilson]

Hey everyone,

I have been approached by a potential new client that has over 50 GBP profiles for 'locations' throughout the UK for a single business, they offer home repairs etc.

Now, currently they have these locations setup using virtual offices, which, i know are against Google guidelines and best practices and they want to move away from this as it's expensive and subject to suspension (in fact some have already been suspended).

I have not audited these accounts yet but wondering what would be they best way to manage this situation? Convert them to all SABs? Is this allowed? Is the only option to have a single SAB with all of these locations and lose all of the reviews/GBPs etc?

 

[keyserholiday]

First off, there is no TOS violation with having a Virtual Office (VO). You can have one as long as the office has permanent signage and is staffed during the posted business hours.

In order to get reinstated, you need to provide Google with documentation that each Google Business Profile (GBP) is in compliance with the TOS and deserves to be showing on Google Maps.

The first thing you need to do with figure out if they are real or need to be corrected to bring them into compliance. If you can’t, then forget about them and move on.

If you client has a high number of GBPs violating the TOS, they could be subject to an account level suspension and all of their GBPs could be suspended.

This client could be worth more headaches that you want to deal with.