Listings Not Showing - Marked as Spam

[raylaminac]

Hello,
over the course of the last month or so I have had a handful of my client's listing being marked as spam. All of which are SABs, they have clean addresses which are hidden on the listing and on the associated website. I have submitted reconsideration requests and attempted to call and elevate the situation but have not been given any insight as to what could be triggering this.

The industries are all different; Furnace Repair, Street Sweeper, Electrician, and a Power Washer so far.

Some listings have been running for some time, others taken down immediately. I can't see any reason for it, has anyone else been experiencing this?

 

[James Watt]

I know Google's been knuckling down on spam for the last 6 months or whatever... to the point where map maker edits are now all manually reviewed. I've been seeing a ton (like, a few a day) of posts from people on the official GMB forum about this exact issue. I haven't been heavily involved like I am now for long enough to know if the current level is part of an up-tick, but it sounds like it is.

Just to get one potential thing out of the way though... I assume you've got all your clients under one roof as a manager, which shouldn't be a problem, but if you've actually got all of them claimed under one email, then that's a huge issue. If one client goes down for spam, any other clients in the same 'owner' account can go down with the ship. I imagine that's not what you're doing, just figured I'd rule it out just in case.

Beyond that, you'd have to post specifics if you want a second set of eyes. Pick the NAP (or NP + city as the case may be) for one of the clients and I'd be happy to take a look.

 

[raylaminac]

One of the clients was in an Admin account while the others all had their own designated account

Waterpower Solutions in Ankeny IA is one of the problem children we have. Phone:
(515) 218-7043

I thought that it was part of their crackdown on spam but I can't see anything uniform between the accounts that would do it other than that they are SABs. Some have a ton of pics we added, some were barren with just the basic info waiting to be verified, and others just had all the fields filled out, and they were filled out correctly matching the site and other citations.

This first one I came across is "Furnace Repair Specialists" in Provo, UT

I thought this one was suspended because the name and branded domain may look a little spammy, but the rest are all completely unique names and makes me want to scrap that idea. Not sure if we should try again, and if we do try again do we need to update or replace any part of the NAP or anything like that?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Hey Ray,

The listing for that location still exists, it just became unverified. This tells me that Google probably doesn't think the business is fake but rather something you were entering into GMB was against the rules.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/W...d=0ahUKEwjKkJXf8Z3LAhXDbSYKHWnICBEQ_BII6QQwZQ

Also if your entire account is being affected it tells me that something is definitley going on with your account that is making Google think you're spam that probably is more related to that than the actual listings themselves.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Is there a reason why they have multiple sites? The listing goes to Power Washing Ankeny ? Iowa Sidewalk Cleaning | Waterpower Solutions yet posts on it go to http://www.powerwashiowa.com/ and Water Power Solutions Iowa | Power Washing Services Iowa

 

[raylaminac]

Other Google products are still available within the accounts without any warning messages, not sure if that's an indication that the accounts are not flagged. Is there another way to tell?

 

[JoyHawkins]

It wouldn't affect other products if Google had an issue with you breaking GMB guidelines (it would only impact GMB). I have a feeling it's related to the multiple sites but honestly don't know without knowing the full history of what changes you made to the listings and how it was listed in your dashboard.

 

[raylaminac]

Thanks for clearing that up.

Two of those sites are pre-existing sites the client already had, I don't think that Google would subtract from their local though just because a business had multiple organic options.

I was able to find this URL
https://plus.google.com/113147161060512949757

it pulls up a broken page like ours does now, can't tell if its the same business or another one.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Ray,

That URL is what was attached to the Maps listing before it got suspended in your account. What I thought was odd was that the listing was making posts on G+ that linked to the other domain names (https://webcache.googleusercontent....nkeny/about+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&strip=1)

However, after looking further I'd say one of the root issues was that the name was listed as "Waterpower Solutions Power Washing" at some point which is a violation because the "power washing" part would be a descriptor, which is not allowed.