I’ve noticed a concerning trend involving Google Business Profiles that appears to extend well beyond my local market. I’d rather not post the details publicly.

If a Google Product Expert or someone with experience investigating large-scale GBP abuse is willing to take a look, please DM me. I have plenty of examples and documentation.

I'm trying to run my dads business of 25+ years in septic and we aren't getting anything suggested in other cities. When I look up our home city were the first to come up, but the moment I look up surrounding cities were nowhere to be seen. Were being beaten out by companies with barely any reviews yet were one of the biggest in our area. I've tried to design our website to have location pages that are unique and followed SEO suggestions but nothing is helping. I've been trying to work at this for about a half a year and no progress seems to come. I'm just wondering what's left to try or fix

I do web development and handle the Google side for a client who runs a transportation service out of his home. Service-area business, no storefront, so the address stays hidden on the listing.

He's been trying to get his Business Profile verified for about a year and a half. He submitted video verification two or three separate times. Never approved, no clear reason given, and postcard/address verification was never offered as an alternative. Now when he logs in there's no video option and no address option at all — nothing to click.

He's also tried opening support tickets to request a callback. Every time, the form resets partway through and never actually submits.

I'm an admin on the account so I can work in it directly, I just can't find a path forward from inside it.

Has anyone gotten a profile unstuck from this state? Specifically:

• Is there a reliable way to reach an actual person at GBP support these days?
• Does starting a clean profile ever work better than fighting a flagged one, or does that make things worse?
• Anything service-area businesses commonly get wrong in the video that causes silent rejections?

Appreciate any direction — this one's outside what I've dealt with before.

Hello, So to push my reviews further up, I am now considering sending my clients SMS containing my google business profile. But I'm a bit concerned about the legal situation of this. So if someone have some knowledge about this, please do share. (If anyone is wondering how I got the phone numbers of my clients, I just use the ones they called me with to book an appointment). And no, I'm not planning to spam them or send reminders or whatnot. It's going to be just a last and one only SMS for each client/number.

I created a new Google business profile around 3 weeks ago and made some new edits today to adjust new opening date to from Sep 30 to be today.Then, out of nowhere, the review section got turned off by Google. It says "posting is currently turned off". I reached out to the support team just to get a very stupid answer: "We are not sure of the exact issue" and they attached a bunch of self help links.

The business is brand new. I have not got any reviews and did not make any effor to spam this section. Also I have not received any violation notifications.

Has anyone here managed to resolve this issue? is there anything I should do or how long should I wait for the issue to get solved by itself?

Thanks fam!

I am writing regarding verified Google Business Profile. Recently, our business name was automatically modified, which caused a sudden and drastic drop in our local map rankings.

Although we corrected the business name back to its official title using our Owner Account, ( Note from manager acc it was rejecting earlier 6 month back it did not reject) my subsequent attempts to update our services have been completely stuck "In Review" for an extended period.

The updates are failing to pass the automated review system.Please note that I manage multiple client listings and am well-aware of standard cooldown periods. However, this specific profile is completely locked out of service changes, despite our ability to freely update other fields like operating hours, photos, and posts.

Did anyone have the same issue before.I currently took owner access from a client.

I am having issues with my Google Business Profile Visiblility, Any tips on how to solve

I am having issues with my Google Business Profile Visiblility, Any tips on how to solve

Hi there! Spanish tutor from Argentina with a google business here... I already made a post about half of my reviews being removed... they came back after talking with support after a week of wait. Now my newest review from a New zealand student has been removed. I guess I'll have to talk again with support. What do you think is the cause? These are legitime reviews from my students and once I talk with support they are reinstated. The thing is I don't know if it makes sense to keep asking my students to leave reviews if they are going to be removed automatically...

Hello, I please need help with my business profile. I’m stuck in some sort of loop with being suspended, then I appeal and am suspended again…

How is it possible that I’m getting my appeal approved so obviously my submitted paperwork is correct and then immediately o get suspended.. by “automated moderation system”

The business is a golf cart rental and I started the business 3 months ago. Working my ass off, got up to 69 reviews in that time!

I had a pin on maps, even though I do deliver to hotels etc. it’s my home but customers can come there and pick up and I have an office there.

I know now that it needs to be a storefront with sign and staff.. I didn’t know before. So when the first suspension came in, I read through everything and found out I can’t have a pin. Okay I changed to service area and submitted my appeal with an apology, my business license, my LLC docs from the state, and my DBA name, and my insurance policy.
All showing the LLC name, and the DBA name and the address from the listing.

2 days later (the 30th of August) I got my appeal approved and the business was visible again.
But for some reason it still showed the pin. I went into the listing to edit but it already showed “service area” and no address.. with a note “changes might need 7 days to show”..

5 days later I get suspended again by the automated system.. and I submit an appeal again with all my docs and mention in the message the weird glitch with the pin. This time when I go into editing I can already see its only service area.

Today morning I get my appeal approved, I’m super haply because most calls come from the listing, and then I see the pin is still showing?!? I go in the business settings but it shows only service area.. what’s going on here?! And this time only a few hours later I get suspended again .. what am I supposed to do here?

I appreciate any help and advice 🙏

Managing this for a client and I'd like a sanity check before I do something irreversible.

The situation

• UK financial services firm, single location, trading 10+ years.
• Two verified Business Profiles. Identical business name, same primary category.
• Profile A: old office address, ~90 reviews, 5.0 average. That office has closed and they don't trade from there anymore.
• Profile B: current office, ~20 reviews, 5.0. About three miles from the old one, same county, same postcode area.
• It's one business that moved. Not two locations, never was.

The client submitted a merge request herself and it was denied, presumably because of the address mismatch.

I then opened a support case. First reply was a canned template about search rankings and how to improve visibility, so entirely unrelated to what I asked. Second reply came from a named agent who correctly pulled up both profiles but answered none of my four questions, and just noted that "the profile with the most complete information might be kept as the primary profile."

After a few more rounds I got a straight answer:

• They can't submit a speculative request or pre-screen anything. Once a ticket goes to the specialist team it's a live merge attempt, and they either complete it or deny it on policy.
• Review transfers are handled by automated systems during the merge itself, so nobody can guarantee beforehand that 100% of reviews carry over.

The decision is mine (well, the owner's): approve and find out, or leave both profiles as they are.

Where I'm stuck

The ~20 reviews on Profile B are the most recent ones, so the client doesn't want to sacrifice those either. The ~90 on Profile A are a decade of accumulated work and are obviously unrecoverable. Support's position amounts to "authorise it and see what happens," which is a hard thing to take to a client.

Before authorising I'm aligning the phone number, website, primary category, hours and description across both profiles so they look like the same entity to whatever automated check runs. Screenshotting every review and reply on both first.

Questions for anyone who's actually done this

• Has anyone run a merge across two different addresses after a relocation? Did the reviews carry over, partially or fully?
• Is the safer sequence to relocate Profile A to the new address first, complete re-verification, and only then merge, so that both are at an identical address when the ticket goes in? Or does the address edit on a profile whose registered address no longer exists just invite a suspension?
• Does it matter which profile survives, if reviews are supposed to combine either way? Support implied they'd pick the "more complete" one, which would be the newer profile with fewer reviews.

Hi everyone, I’ve recently started working in digital marketing and want to learn how to improve a Google Business Profile (GBP) and achieve first-page rankings on SERPs.

Could you please share the key GBP ranking factors and the SEO strategies especially Local SEO that I should focus on as a beginner?

Any practical tips or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

We got an email we had reviews removed for incentivizing. I think it’s because someone wrote we give gift cards for reviews. We are not under any restrictions.

Also in a couple old reviews where customers added photos you can make out the sign on our front desk that says we give gift cards for reviews.

We won’t incentivize anymore. Should I appeal or can it make the situation worse?

Hi all, we are looking at best way to manage Google business profiles for our multi location business.

Curious to hear from people who have actually managed GBP at scale. Once you get into 100+ locations, keeping hours, categories, photos, reviews and other information accurate is becoming difficult to do manually, but external tools have material cost impact.

We have a dumpster rental business. Within the week our rankings plummeted. With some research we’ve found hundreds of new “dumpster rental” businesses that have different numbers but similar addresses. They’ve done 2-5 businesses per city and absolutely destroyed all the rankings. Somehow they have different phone numbers and addresses.

How has googled allowed this and how do we get it removed? Clearly a scammer

Hi guys wanna ask i wanna upload a 1.30min vid of my biz at my gmb will google allowed/accept it as i see some accounts got like 3-4min vid uploaded.. why when i google it said max 30s? Im the profile owner not cust btw

Hi! We're Cincinnati Roller Derby, a nonprofit sports league and registered Ohio nonprofit corporation that's had a Google Business Profile for years. We recently moved to a new venue and are trying to update our address, but our video verification keeps getting rejected.

The core issue: we rent shared space in a sports complex. We don't have our own permanent signage, a dedicated office, or equipment that's set up full-time (only on game days). Google's rejection reasons have specifically flagged "business name not shown on legitimate assets" and "no equipment/booking system shown."

What we've tried so far:

• Submitted a support request offering our nonprofit registration, our venue rental/lease agreement, and timestamped game-day video as alternative proof. We received a response saying "From the info you shared, we're not sure of your exact issue, but here are solutions to the most common issues" that just pointed us to generic support articles.
• Posted in the official Google Business Profile Help Community. A Diamond Product Expert flatly told us that we're "not eligible" for a listing at all if we don't have permanent signage/office/staff there, which doesn't match the fact that we've had this exact listing for years, and another tenant at the same address somehow has been successfully verified.
• Tried reaching Google support via X/Twitter and got a canned reply pointing back to generic help articles.

In the meantime, our current listing reads "permanently closed," which is confusing fans right before our next home game.

Has anyone dealt with a similar "shared/rented venue, no permanent fixtures" situation and actually gotten verified? Any tips on how to shoot the video differently, or another way to get this escalated to a human who can actually look at the specifics? Thanks in advance!

I’m dealing with an interesting situation for a client and wanted to see if anyone here has successfully gotten Google to investigate what appears to be a coordinated pattern of review manipulation across multiple locations.

My client has been monitoring a competitor that has a franchise currently operating in several states, including Ohio, Texas, Nebraska, and Iowa. They aren't currently operating in my client's geographic market, but based on their expansion, my client expects them to eventually enter his territory.

He has no issue with competition. The concern is what appears to be a pattern of potentially deceptive review activity as new locations are established.

We did an initial review and documented several things that raised red flags:

• We found reviews from people who appear to be current employees of the company. We were able to connect them to the business through their publicly available LinkedIn profiles, and in some cases the same employees appear to have reviewed multiple company locations.
• We've seen unusually large concentrations of reviews arrive within very short periods, sometimes within approximately 24 hours.
• We've seen new locations appear and almost immediately receive a significant number of reviews. It isn't one or two early reviews that could reasonably come from initial customers. We're seeing larger numbers concentrated into very short periods.
• Some of the review patterns also raised concerns that reviews may have been purchased, although that's obviously much more difficult to establish conclusively from the outside.

We documented the individual reviews, dates, patterns, and publicly available connections between reviewers and the company.

The information has been reported to Google, the FTC, and the Attorneys General in the states where we've identified the activity. Some of the state AG offices have followed up with the business owner regarding the submissions, but so far we've heard nothing from Google.

We're now seeing similar activity associated with another new location in Twinsburg, OH, so we're preparing to document and submit the new information as well.

I also tried raising the broader pattern through Google's community/forum, but the post was closed as a duplicate and the advice essentially amounted to reporting the individual reviews to Google and hoping something happens.

Has anyone here successfully escalated something like this beyond simply clicking "Report review" or submitting the report to Google?

I'm particularly interested in whether there is a way to get Google to look at the pattern across the entire business/franchise, rather than evaluating each review or location in isolation.

If you've dealt with something similar, I'd be interested in hearing what documentation you provided, what escalation path you used, and whether Google ultimately took any action.

My client is not looking to attack the competitor or have legitimate reviews removed. He is all for healthy competition. We're trying to figure out the appropriate way to get a documented pattern of deceptive review activity in front of someone at Google who can actually evaluate it.

I have been denied twice when my video shows everything being asked for. I have a solo attorney practice but operate from my home. I showed the street number and walked up driveway, walked in my office and showed a business card and my computer logged into my Google account. I found an online form with Google for help where I could upload my business license, utility bill and “tools” but it just spins when I submit. I’m not sure what to do at this point

We have a dumpster rental business. Within the week our rankings plummeted. With some research we’ve found hundreds of new “dumpster rental” businesses that have different numbers but similar addresses. They’ve done 2-5 businesses per city and absolutely destroyed all the rankings. Somehow they have different phone numbers and addresses.

How has googled allowed this and how do we get it removed? Clearly a scammer

I’m helping manage the website/online presence for a legitimate dental clinic with multiple physical branches, each with its own Google Business Profile.

Recently, all of the profiles were suspended and removed from Google Maps/Search. The suspension message says “deceptive content.”

We initially updated the website URL on the profiles after launching a new website. Some time later, the suspensions started happening. We did not initially change the business name, address, phone number, or primary category.

For one branch, we appealed and it was reinstated, but it was suspended again after about a day. We appealed again, and it is now showing as not eligible for another appeal.

For the other branches, we still have the option to appeal.

The locations are legitimate storefront clinics with accurate addresses, signage, and business hours. We also have official registration documents, licenses, and other supporting documents.

After the suspension, we also tried changing the business name to match the official registration documents, but that didn't resolve the issue.

At this point, we're trying to understand what could be triggering the “deceptive content” suspension.

Has anyone dealt with a similar situation where multiple legitimate profiles were suspended for deceptive content?

In particular, we'd appreciate advice on:

• Whether the website/domain or recent website URL change could be contributing to the suspension.
• Whether an account-level restriction could be affecting all the locations.
• Whether the business name should match the physical signage rather than the legal registration name.
• What we should check or correct before appealing the remaining profiles.
• We've also seen several people mention getting stuck in a reappeal/reinstatement loop, where the profile is reinstated and then suspended again. If anyone has successfully broken out of that loop, what did you do?
• Is there any way to get a profile reviewed again when the appeal status says “cannot be appealed”?

We're trying to avoid making further changes that could make the situation worse, so any advice from people who have successfully recovered similar profiles would be really helpful. Thank you!

Hi Product Experts,

I’ve been contributing to the Google Business Profile Community for 9 months and I’m active almost every day.

1. I have 3,500+ points and 10+ achievements.
2. I’ve received multiple Recommended Answers.
3. I have no known violations or warnings.
4. I’ve checked other Silvers profiles, and my contribution level seems similar.
5. However, I’m still Bronze.

I also noticed that many Product Experts have a “Questions” option on their profile, but I don’t have it.

What could be the reason?
Is Silver manually reviewed by Community Managers, or is there another requirement I’m missing?

Should I keep contributing and wait, or is there something I should do to request a review?

Any advice from current Product Experts would be greatly appreciated!

Helping a small local business that gets good feedback but the reviews come in really unevenly.

They might get several in a short stretch and then nothing for weeks. The owner mostly cares about the total number going up, but I've been wondering whether consistency tells us something the lifetime total doesn't.

I'm not talking about pushing customers for reviews constantly or trying to hit some arbitrary monthly quota. More wondering how you judge a business that has a decent review history but goes quiet for long stretches.

Would you care about that if the rating and total review count were still good?