Uptick in suspensions occurring (not related to reinstatement response times)

[Jaimie S]

Hi All,

Is anyone else experiencing an unprecedented amount of GBP suspensions? I had 3 separate profiles suspend after doing a post on the account. Other accounts are suspending after making changes to business hours or main categories.

These are across 3 different countries and listings are managed by different Users (in different countries, different logins etc).

Its been about 1-2 weeks of this.

Is this the same for any other agencies?

Thanks ahead!

 

[Caroline]

I agree. There are things going on and I'm too scared to touch any client's profile now. The work involved in getting it back and the loss of income for the client is too much.

 

[keyserholiday]

Am I the only one who thinks such an uptick is normal for a Core update? Historically, at least at our agency, we notice a wave of suspension and profile-is-now-a-duplicate cases with each Core updates.

Ironically enough, we actually have seen a lot less of that nonsense (I went through our accounts just yesterday) than during the May Core Update, so I'm with SEMrush's Analysis that this is tamer than average (personally my opinion is that this particular update was not planned for this timing, but I have no idea what triggered Google to make it so abruptly.)

Core updates have nothing to do with GBP suspensions. All of the teams are completely siloed and don't communicate or work with each other.

 

[JS Girard]

There IS an indirect connection between core updates and GBPs, though: the Knowledge Graph. It gets updated during core updates, and this, I believe, drives the upticks in suspensions and duplicates discovered that we systematically notice during core updates.

 

[Jaimie S]

We are also seeing a massive increase in security verification in logging into gmail accounts, requiring phone verification texts to log in to listings! Anyone else?

So do we think the suspensions on posts etc is a bug @JoyHawkins ? It is absolutely insane we have had over 300 listings suspended across the globe and we don’t even want to access listings right now!

 

[Marcin Karwowski]

Perhaps google is introducing new options in the GBP panel. Today we have noticed new changes for the first time.
It looks as if the changes were aimed mainly at fighting spam.
(unfortunately screenshots only in Polish)

1. Company name. The text can be up to 40 characters long.
   
2. Company name. The company name contains too many capital letters.
   
   
3. Defining the nature of the company.
   - Online Store -Local Store -Services
   

Has anyone experienced these changes?

 

[JS Girard]

Perhaps google is introducing new options in the GBP panel. Today we have noticed new changes for the first time.
It looks as if the changes were aimed mainly at fighting spam.

[snip]

Has anyone experienced these changes?

Very interesting.

They look like check boxes, but is it possible to select more than one of those three options?

Seeing as Google has done some testing on non-English areas before (e.g. the offer posts presentation), this may be a harbinger of things to come. Personally I look forward to it seeing as quite a few of our clients demand ridiculous long profile names.

 

[Marcin Karwowski]

Very interesting.

They look like check boxes, but is it possible to select more than one of those three options?

Seeing as Google has done some testing on non-English areas before (e.g. the offer posts presentation), this may be a harbinger of things to come. Personally I look forward to it seeing as quite a few of our clients demand ridiculous long profile names.

We have exactly the same problems. So the official character limit might be a good change. I wonder if a maximum of 40 characters is not enough.
As for the checkbox, unfortunately I don't remember because we've selected one option and we don't get that option every time to repeat it.

 

[JoyHawkins]

We are also seeing a massive increase in security verification in logging into gmail accounts, requiring phone verification texts to log in to listings! Anyone else?

Yep, we're seeing this as well. We have one that my entire team uses and it was sending texts to me all last week any time someone logged in.

I've had lots of agencies say they are seeing an increase in suspensions in the last 2 weeks so it's not just you.

 

[sarmcl]

Hi All,

Is anyone else experiencing an unprecedented amount of GBP suspensions? I had 3 separate profiles suspend after doing a post on the account. Other accounts are suspending after making changes to business hours or main categories.

These are across 3 different countries and listings are managed by different Users (in different countries, different logins etc).

Its been about 1-2 weeks of this.

Is this the same for any other agencies?

Thanks ahead!

YUPPPPPPPPP! We just had our agency profile suspended and all I did was create a GMB post. We also had a 2 client ones last week. Simple changes to the listings (hours and tracking parameters added to listings) and both got knocked out of verification. Frustrating to say the least!

 

[JordanJCaron]

YUPPPPPPPPP! We just had our agency profile suspended and all I did was create a GMB post. We also had a 2 client ones last week. Simple changes to the listings (hours and tracking parameters added to listings) and both got knocked out of verification. Frustrating to say the least!

I just had my companies GMB listing disabled. I hadn't touched it in 3 weeks since replying to customer review. I use to have a physical location but removed it and added service areas well over a year ago so I thought that was it. But I came to LSF and found that I am not alone.

Although, none of my clients pages have been suspended or disabled.

 

[sarmcl]

I just had my companies GMB listing disabled. I hadn't touched it in 3 weeks since replying to customer review. I use to have a physical location but removed it and added service areas well over a year ago so I thought that was it. But I came to LSF and found that I am not alone.

Although, none of my clients pages have been suspended or disabled.

It just sucks an unnecessary. Now our agency has to go pull documentation to get reinstated. And then theres the at least 3 week wait. Google is playing with peoples jobs here and its not a good feeling

 

[Jaimie S]

Yep, we're seeing this as well. We have one that my entire team uses and it was sending texts to me all last week any time someone logged in.

I've had lots of agencies say they are seeing an increase in suspensions in the last 2 weeks so it's not just you.

Thanks Joy,
Do you think the security checks will stay? Phone numbers run out it will make it impossible!
Or these are bugs we need to wait on a fix for

 

[JoyHawkins]

I'm not sure it's a bug.

 

[Jonathan Sousa]

I noticed a change on the Help Center Suspended Profile Fixes page.



Now Google is saying that it will inform the user about what is wrong with the profile on some cases (apparently those where there is no abuse).

There are changes taking place and along with them the algorithm seems to be going crazy.

In collaboration with the thread, I took a suspension yesterday just for changing a client's coverage area.

 

[Jaimie S]

Has this slowed down for anyone yet - or has anyone braved the bug in the last few days?

 

[keyserholiday]

I'm not sure it's a bug.

It has to be a bug, as profiles are getting suspended for editing the description and adding UTM codes. A company consult for got suspended when they switched our the telephone number with a tracking number. They are all brick-and-mortar franchise businesses.

 

[Ken_R]

Here's a fairly long reddit thread, 6 days ago, same topic: Google My Business Getting Worse By The Day?

Do you manage client GMB Listings and are you seeing the suspension rates getting worse?

a sample reply:

Most likely Google relying more on the AI side of the system to moderate things, which tends to produce more issues until kinks are worked out.

 

[dnp]

Is the suspension also happening when replying to reviews or just when making edits to the profile?

 

[Rosa]

I've got a listing that has been suspended right after verifying it with a code via postcard. This is so frustrating.

 

[ai2ik]

I had 3 listings suspended without making changes. Very frustrating at the lost revenue for the client.