Verified google profile gets unverified and later removed by Google.

[RobbertKleijwegt]

I need assistance with this unusual case. A verified owner of a business profile had verified their profile years ago. Over the years, dozens of reviews were received, which are highly valuable to this business owner.

In May 2023, Google seemingly sent an email out of the blue to the Google account linked as the verified owner of the profile. The email stated that the account had not been logged into for a long time and that the verification would be revoked in 7 days due to inactivity. This could have been avoided by logging into the business profile.

This email remained unread. Then, in June 2024, Google sent a follow-up email with a similar message, stating that the unpublished business profile would be deleted from the Google account managing the profile. It also stated that the profile needed to be verified that same day to retain it.

This email also remained unread. According to the account owner, they never saw these emails.

The former owner of the profile, unaware of these events, checked the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) almost daily to monitor the ranking of their IT recruitment agency. Until last week, their Google profile was prominently visible in the SERP. It then became clear that Google had removed the unverified profile.

The person in question contacted the support desk via chat and email and was informed that the deleted profile could not be restored. However, they were told that if a new profile were created and verified, it might be possible to recover the reviews from the deleted profile.

This raises a number of questions. Firstly, it is unclear why a Google account is unlinked due to prolonged inactivity, especially since this account was the only one linked to the profile.

Secondly, there is the question of why a deleted Google profile cannot be restored while the reviews can potentially be recovered.

I've posted this case on Google Community but not sure if all the high skilled experts on Local Search Forum even visit th Google Community site.

Thanks for reading
Robbert

 

[JS Girard]

I believe this is a side effect of the Google removal of unused *user* profiles, which they have warned about over a year anda half ago. If a user profile is deleted any GBP that profile has access to will be deleted, in addition to content they posted to the username (e.g. photos, google docs, reviews etc.). That secondary effect is a known issue although Google seems to have no interest in fixing it.

Now the question is: does the user profile login still work or not? That's the only way to be sure what's happened.

If the CID of Business Profile ID (why these are two different numerical identifiers is beyond me) of the deleted profile is known, it might be possible to get it reinstated, however, in your place I would not hold my breathe. At our agency we have never had any luck whatsoever with cases similar to this.