How to Get Suspended GMB Back?

How to get Suspended GMB Back? Google My Business(GMB) is a free tool for the online promotion and management of businesses on Google Search and Maps. It allows you to connect with your customers, lets them find you, and enables you to edit and verify your business profile. It is a very efficient tool to expand one’s business to a broader mass.

Google requires you to verify your business first in order to get started. This is a mandatory procedure that benefits all of the involved parties. In short, business verification identifies you as the rightful owner of your business which ensures security for your profile and better search results for your potential customers.  

Your business is verified by Google via a verification postcard that arrives within 14 days.

Unfortunately, for some it is not that simple!

Google has certain guidelines for representing your business via GMB account.

A direct link to the note by Google states that: *“Google reserves the right to suspend access to Google My Business or other Google Services to individuals or businesses that violate these guidelines, and may work with law enforcement in the event that the violation is unlawful.”

This is as serious as it sounds. Google is pretty serious about their guidelines for GMB accounts and causes straight up account suspension if not complied. However Google is not too generous with giving the exact reason for the suspension, which is quite frustrating for worried business owners.   

Your GMB account is suspended! What to do?

Although Google is not very transparent with the reasoning of GMB account suspension but there are some major points mentioned in Google’s guidelines for business management that you can run through for possible reasons.

Make sure that your business listings are accurate and updated. You can go through Google’s guidelines on GMB profiles and restricted-content and check if your account complies with all of them. If you don’t find any anomalies then you can visit Google’s help page and file a reinstatement request.

Rules that are clear for business profiles on Google My Business are as follows:  

• businesses must have a physical location that customers can visit

• There should be no prohibited content

• Provided information should accurately describe your business as it is recognized in the real world

• All the information should comply with Google’s policies

• Address and/or service area should be accurate

• There should be fewer categories to describe your core business

• Only one profile per business is permitted

• GMB accounts are not accepted for brands, organizations, artists, and other online-only businesses

If you’ve double checked on the above policies and still haven’t recovered your GMB account, then read on:

Possible reasons for GMB suspension:

1. Your business is an online-only service provider and do not have a physical location.

2. Your business name has unnecessary information such as:

• Marketing taglines

• Trademark signs

• Store codes

• Names in capitals (although acronyms are allowed)

• Unnecessary spaces

• Website urls

• Phone numbers with some exceptions

• Business hours information

• Special characters

• Service information

• City or street name in location

• Business inside another business

3. The listed website has more than one URL address.

4. There are multiple business listings for the same business with same address.

5. Your business name either has error or multiple variations online.

6. There are some changes made recently about your name, address, categories, website, or phone number that differs from directory listings.  

7. Google do not permit keyword stuffing in your name. Check if you have used it to get high search engine ranking.

How to get suspended GMB back?  

Based on the type of suspension, you can resolve the issue and get your suspended GMB account back:

Type of suspension	Resolving the issue
Soft suspension Your business is labelled as unverified and you will see a suspension notice when you log into your GMB account. Although your business listings will be seen on Google but you will need to verify your account in order to manage your account. Possible causes of soft suspension:   Altered business name Change in address of map location Adding more than one category	You can resolve soft suspension by opening a new Google account and retrieve your listings. You’ll need to go through the verification process all over again by keeping in mind the causes of soft suspension.
Hard suspension When Google finds your account information is in violation with their guidelines or is ineligible for listing, your account gets hard suspension. Your account simply gets a notice for removal and you can-not reclaim your listings. Possible causes of hard suspension: You are using multiple business listings for the same business Multiple franchises of a business have overlapping postcodes You’re using promotional content in your business description You’re using your residential address	Send Google a request of mentioning the cause of hard suspension and reinstating your account. Once you are granted access to your listings, you should resolve the cause of suspension.
Account Suspension Types: Manager account suspension Owner account suspensions In manager suspension, the manager can no longer manage listings, however the listings are not affected.   In owner account suspension, the Google account of the owner is entirely removed along with the listings and reviews. Google removes the owner’s account completely once it determines that the owner has violated Google’s terms of service.   Listings can be reinstated once the account is reinstated but some reviews will not be recovered.	You will have to submit proof of your business ownership, location and its legitimacy. You have to submit the following documents: Proof of physical location A utility bill with the same address as your GMB account Proof of your business having no shared space with another business Business license or tax form with same address listed in your GMB acount Your GMB listing’s dashboard URL address

It is understandably a travesty for local or small scale business owners to have their GMB account suspended, especially when major part of their business operations are dependent on their Google My Business accounts.

Google is seemingly quick to judge the content of your GMB account and suspend its operation but not so keen on giving a straight explanation for doing so. As troublesome as it is, there is no other way around to resolve the issue than contacting Google to help you determine the reason of suspension.

It might take longer than a week or more to get the proper response but in order to get back into business and regain your full form, you should do thorough analysis on your account information and recheck everything. Like other business operations, it is always wise to get the GMB suspension issue resolved as soon as possible.  

For more info you can contact Gratis Soft Solutions.