Question about a very strange issue related to business.site

[kennyk3]

Hi everyone,

I'm helping someone out with their GBP and something strange has happened that I've never seen before.

Their listing got disabled (not suspended, which I think is different). I helped them get it reinstated (which seems to happen faster with disabled profiles compared to suspended profiles).

Before their listing got disabled, they were using the free business.site that Google provides. They had a domain mapped to the site, so instead of using something like "name-of-brand.business.site" it was just "name-of-brand.com".

What's strange is, after it got reinstated, the business.site is no longer there and there is no option to manage it (see the attached image).

I tried contacting GBP support, and, they had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. Slightly frustrating. But, what's even more interesting, I have another listing of my own that got disabled, then reinstated and the business.site also is no longer showing (I didn't have a domain mapped, so it didn't break anything though).

If anyone has experienced this or know a fix, I would greatly appreciate it, thanks!

 

[whitespark]

This is the first I've heard of a listing getting "disabled" and that being different than suspended. Did I miss a memo on that?

 

[kennyk3]

Just seemed different to me. I don’t think there were any memos. Just saw a pattern where 2 disabled listings were missing the option to manage a business.site.

Also, these accounts seems to get reinstated much faster opposed to accounts I’ve worked on that were suspended. Just my experience.

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

This is the first I've heard of a listing getting "disabled" and that being different than suspended. Did I miss a memo on that?

Hey Darren, I actually think there is a "disabled" status versus "suspended". We had a client, can't remember which one now that was in a disabled status that we requested reinstatement. Google seems to indicate there is a difference between disabled versus suspended: Fix disabled Business Profiles - Google Business Profile Help

 

[kennyk3]

Any insight as to why the manage business.site would be gone from these types of listings?

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

Hi everyone,

I'm helping someone out with their GBP and something strange has happened that I've never seen before.

Their listing got disabled (not suspended, which I think is different). I helped them get it reinstated (which seems to happen faster with disabled profiles compared to suspended profiles).

Before their listing got disabled, they were using the free business.site that Google provides. They had a domain mapped to the site, so instead of using something like "name-of-brand.business.site" it was just "name-of-brand.com".

What's strange is, after it got reinstated, the business.site is no longer there and there is no option to manage it (see the attached image).

I tried contacting GBP support, and, they had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. Slightly frustrating. But, what's even more interesting, I have another listing of my own that got disabled, then reinstated and the business.site also is no longer showing (I didn't have a domain mapped, so it didn't break anything though).

If anyone has experienced this or know a fix, I would greatly appreciate it, thanks!

Hey Kenny, that is an interesting problem. A few questions for you.

Does the Google site still work?

Did you purchase the custom domain thru Google Domains?

If the Google site is still working, have you already tried to delete the website url and save it with no website url? Afterwards, if you go back to the GBP does it show the Google Site manage button or create button? If you haven't done this already, you may want to try this out on your own listing rather than your friends, just to be safe .

-Jeff

 

[kennyk3]

So, on both listings, there's no option at all to manage the business.site - on my own listing, I was just using the default business.site, but not as the primary URL (I have my own domain with a wordpress website for that). And on that listing, the business.site does not work and cannot be accessed through GBP.

On the GBP I'm working on, they had it mapped to a domain and that domain now throws a 404. They replaced the primary URL with their facebook page in the meantime.

Just to be clear, this isn't related to the primary Website, only the business.site - so in the screenshot, you'll see that the second one is missing the "Your current website is created with Google"

Thanks for the response!

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

Hey Kenny, thanks for the reply. Already understood the business.site problem and that you can't manage it thru the GBP .

The business site with the custom domain, were they just redirecting the domain to the business.site or was the custom domain mapped directly to the business.site? If you purchased the domain thru Google, you may have some other options for support.

So, previously even if you had a custom website url listed on your GBP you could still create a new google site. I actually did this about two months ago on a profile we manage that already had a website with a custom domain. However, I just went into a few profiles we manage and that option seems to have disappeared. I don't have access to any GBPs that don't have an existing custom website url so I can't confirm whether Google isn't allowing someone to create a google site for profiles with an existing custom url, or whether the option is only available to GBPs that have no website listed, or it is just a bug in the NMX. On one of our profiles that we own, I removed the custom website url and saved it as blank to see if the create option would appear. Unfortunately, Google put up a message that it might take up to 30 days to approve the edit to the url, so I put it back and fortunately it was accepted pretty much immediately.

I'd just keep plugging away with your Google support requests. Not sure how you had it phrased, but you may want to keep it simple and just say that you no longer have the ability to access or manage your google site using GBP.

Hopefully another forum user may have some similar experience and share their feedback. Good luck!

 

[TriciaClements]

This sounds similar but a bit different to a problem I just came across. I just started working with 2 new profiles. The option to add a business.site website isn't in the dashboard at all. This is only happening on new profiles that never had a GBP website. @whitespark Have you seen this before on new profiles?

Here's what I see in the new GBPs:

Here's mine with the place right under the website to edit it:

On the profile where I already had a website created by Google, I can edit it. If it's new and I didn't have the Google website, then there is no option to create it.

 

[JS Girard]

This is the first I've heard of a listing getting "disabled" and that being different than suspended. Did I miss a memo on that?

We've been seeing it occasionally for a while (we have quite a few clients who insist on doing shady stuff). My theory is that a disabled profile is a manual action (i.e. through the redressal form most likely), but that remains pure theory since there's no way to check!

Before NMX, disabled and suspended profiles were going through different processes too: the disabled profiles had to go through a normal support ticket instead of the special suspended form. This certainly explains the differences in delay that persists.

This sounds similar but a bit different to a problem I just came across. I just started working with 2 new profiles. The option to add a business.site website isn't in the dashboard at all. This is only happening on new profiles that never had a GBP website. @whitespark Have you seen this before on new profiles?

Yup! because creating the business site is part of our process, it was one of the first thing we noticed missing from NMX. I'm 100% sure that's also the source of @kennyk3 's problem: the website was deleted entirely when the profile was disabled (disabling and suspending remove the ability to make some changes in NMX), and it cannot be recreated at all anymore because the function literally doesn't yet exist in NMX.