Profile suspended and appeal denied. Best course of action for next steps?

[Hec93]

Hello fellow locals. I have a tricky situation here. I have a client which profile got suspended after a rush of changes were applied to the GBP, which included some sensitive information like website url, additional categories and phone number change as well, but the profile itself it is no violation of any Google Guidelines nor the changes were for trying to push anything, just common optimization tasks. The reason for the suspension was "deceptive content" so, a content policy and we know how ample/vague that reason is on its own.

Unfortunately, client did not wait for us to handle the appeal process and went up and do it on their own by just submitting one doc out of all the ones that are required. The appeal got denied after almost 15 days and there is no option to resubmit.

Here´s were the fun starts: I want to request an official "additional review of a denied appeal" using the link Google has for that and obviously, I need the same documents requested initially for the first appeal. But the client´s papers area a mess. They are using a trade name (DBA) but the record that shows they applied for that DBA does not have the current address set up for the suspended GBP. Tax records also have different addresses. They did provided me with the doc that states their official change of location but that is all I have. I don´t have a consolidated paper that shows everything updated except for some contractor´s licenses which I don´t really know for sure if work for this process.

Should I aim for the client to provide me with some sort of official documentation that has everything updated or is it realistic to think that uploading all this to the Google platform with a thorough explanation will do the trick? Not much to play with here so I want to be super accurate while doing this.

 

[Stefan Somborac]

Hi @Hec93 - I believe we develop opinions about solving suspensions/appeals that are all a little bit wrong because what we think is the part of our submission that solved the suspension isn't actually the bit that fixed the problem. Keeping that in mind, here are some thoughts/opinions:

- IMO, Google support techs aren't going to read a detailed note about how all your documents tie together. I believe it's worth collecting documents with consistent address information so that support doesn't have to make any effort to see how they relate to the business.

- On that note, US Secretary of State records update quickly (just a few days) in most states. I'd get the address on the LLC corrected. (Assuming there is an LLC.)

- In my experience, DBA's are not quite so easy. In some states (e.g. Texas, California), they're issued at the county level, and each county has a different level of sophistication. Some have great online records that update quickly, others do not. In some states (e.g. Florida) they're issued by the state and the online record system is great. Regardless, correct the address on the DBA.

- Once the LLC/DBA have the right address, the contractor's licenses you have become a useful addition to your submission.

- Tax records might take forever to update but I would submit without them once I had the above items.

 

[Hec93]

Hi @Hec93 - I believe we develop opinions about solving suspensions/appeals that are all a little bit wrong because what we think is the part of our submission that solved the suspension isn't actually the bit that fixed the problem. Keeping that in mind, here are some thoughts/opinions:

- IMO, Google support techs aren't going to read a detailed note about how all your documents tie together. I believe it's worth collecting documents with consistent address information so that support doesn't have to make any effort to see how they relate to the business.

- On that note, US Secretary of State records update quickly (just a few days) in most states. I'd get the address on the LLC corrected. (Assuming there is an LLC.)

- In my experience, DBA's are not quite so easy. In some states (e.g. Texas, California), they're issued at the county level, and each county has a different level of sophistication. Some have great online records that update quickly, others do not. In some states (e.g. Florida) they're issued by the state and the online record system is great. Regardless, correct the address on the DBA.

- Once the LLC/DBA have the right address, the contractor's licenses you have become a useful addition to your submission.

- Tax records might take forever to update but I would submit without them once I had the above items.

Yes, I totally get what you are saying.

To me was unrealistic to think a Google rep will read through all that explanations and separated doc to put all together and such. Thanks for taking the time to put in the feedback!!