Risk of changing the GBP primary category seasonally

[Shelly]

I have a client who would like to be found as a painter in the summer and a contractor in the off-season. We have all of the services listed in GBP, with Painter being the primary category. The client is also starting to work on building reviews on his GBP for contracting, and we are making some adjustments to his website to highlight contracting further.

I know category changes come with a risk of reverification and/or suspension, but I also know if we change the primary category seasonally, it may help. He is getting the majority of his current traffic through GBP, so I'm nervous to experiment.

Does anyone have experience with seasonal category changes or have other ideas beyond category changes seasonally beyond what I mentioned? I considered adding products (using his services like flooring, shed building, decks, etc.), but was also concerned with suspensions.

 

[keyserholiday]

One of four things can happen when you make any change:
1. Google will accept the update
2. The update will go into review
3. The business will need to verify via video
4. The business will get suspended

Category changes often trigger a suspension or need to reverify.

Is your client able to create a new GBP? Those are two different categories and they can have two.

 

[Shelly]

@keyserholiday They would need to have different business names to do this, correct? They work under one business name right now (but it does give me a potential idea on leveraging his construction partner's business name to achieve the same thing).

 

[Ncumby]

I have a client who would like to be found as a painter in the summer and a contractor in the off-season. We have all of the services listed in GBP, with Painter being the primary category. The client is also starting to work on building reviews on his GBP for contracting, and we are making some adjustments to his website to highlight contracting further.

I know category changes come with a risk of reverification and/or suspension, but I also know if we change the primary category seasonally, it may help. He is getting the majority of his current traffic through GBP, so I'm nervous to experiment.

Does anyone have experience with seasonal category changes or have other ideas beyond category changes seasonally beyond what I mentioned? I considered adding products (using his services like flooring, shed building, decks, etc.), but was also concerned with suspensions.

We change our clients main category for seasonal services. We rarely have issues, unless it is quite different (example, we have a roofer who does snow removal) We always change the main category just before the main season is over, and when signups and contracts for the seasonal one begins. And again about 85% of the way through the seasonal period we will switch back so that they are adjusted coming back into the warmer weather, ahead of the online searching boom.

Regardless of the cat changes, we fill out the services in full. It is best practice.

 

[Tony Wang]

One of the more common changes is for hvac, changing between heating and ac repair each season. I've done it many times in the past, but I have to admit, I now hesitate greatly. I'd be curious to hear of any uptick in suspensions like this.

 

[Ncumby]

One of the more common changes is for hvac, changing between heating and ac repair each season. I've done it many times in the past, but I have to admit, I now hesitate greatly. I'd be curious to hear of any uptick in suspensions like this.

We did our mass group changes in recent weeks and we had next to no issues! We swapped about 60 different profile's main category with the seasonal one (Heating, snow, Christmas related etc) and saw mostly success. Only a few required further work with Google support when the platform did not accept the change, none were suspended.