Last week, ISB posted an opinion article by small-business owner Matt Holyoake, who had recently been through a frustrating experience with Google’s Business Profiles system.
Holyoake had spent years building up his Google Business Profile (GBP), an important asset for local and service-based businesses. Then, one day, it was suspended without warning – and with no reason given.
“You’re simply sent an email saying ‘Your profile has been suspended’, and a link to a labyrinth of policy documentation,” said Holyoake. “It’s up to you to figure out why, and you only have two chances to ‘appeal’ their decision.”
If your GBP has been suspended, you’ll know that it’s a distressing place – and that it can cost your business significantly. You’ll also know that the process of getting your GBP restored can be endlessly frustrating and mysterious.
To find out how Google’s verification process works, and how businesses can have their profiles restored, ISB spoke to SEO specialist and Google Product Expert Pulkit Agrawal.
Why did my Google Business Profile get suspended?
The number one reason for GBP suspension is violation of Google’s policies – the same ones Holyoake described as “a labyrinth”.
“If the business has been suspended, it’s because of policy violations…99 per cent of the time,” said Agrawal.
As to why Google doesn’t give a reason for the violation: it’s not in their financial interest, according to Agrawal. From Google’s point of view, the profiles are a free service – why spend time and money telling business owners what they did wrong? Moreover, helping bad actors to pinpoint what they did wrong is also not in the company’s best interests.
Suspensions are also not doled out by humans generally, but it can happen. Instead, Google’s algorithms trawl profiles for elements that don’t align with policies – and they’re very sensitive, to weed out fraudsters who might be trying to game the system.
“People are becoming creative, they are using employee addresses to verify different locations,” said Agrawal. “I even know businesses that go around and look for rundown houses… because they want to target multiple locations.”
But as fraudulent businesses get taken down, so do many legitimate ones – like Holyoake’s. If this has happened to you too, here’s what to do.
How can I get my Google Business Profile reinstated?
Once your profile is taken down, you’ll have two chances to appeal the decision.
In Holyoake’s case, both appeals were rejected, even though he provided seemingly substantial evidence to prove his business’ legitimacy: documentation, business information, photos of workers in uniform. But Agrawal said even the most bulletproof evidence of your business’ existence won’t cut it if you’ve somehow violated Google’s policy.
“The only reason why appeals get rejected is because of policy violations – they go by the book,” he explained.
Agrawal always recommends looking at the policy violations with a fine-toothed comb before you appeal. Once you’ve found the area that your profile doesn’t comply with, fix it up and then appeal. If you don’t think you’ve violated any policies after having a good readthrough – or if your appeal is rejected – the Google Business Profile Help Community is the next place to go.
Google’s help community
Google’s help community is a forum, but it can be useful in getting your GBP restored, Agrawal said. This community is where Google Product Experts hang out – these are volunteers who are in direct contact with Google and often attend conferences to learn more about their products and services. When Matt Holyoake’s GBP was suspended, it was one of these Product Experts who finally got the profile reinstated.
“If appeals are rejected, your only option is to turn to Google’s support ‘Community’, where a ‘Google Product Expert’ might answer your questions,” said Holyoake. “…When one of Google’s Product Experts somehow got our profile reinstated, no reason was given for the downtime.”
Agrawal is a Google Product Expert. Though he was unable to share how the process works exactly, he said he works with both business owners and Google Support to make sure that policy violations are fixed. He added that false positives, where no policy violations occurred, are “fairly common”.
So, if you engage with these community pages, you may be able to find an expert who can help you: either by liaising with Google or by identifying what policy your GBP might be violating.
Note: Agrawal warned never to give your logins or personal information away to anyone helping you – you shouldn’t need to do this to get a solution.
Google support
Google Product Experts aren’t the only people who handle cases like these; business owners can also reach out to Google’s support via a form online.
Yes, there is a dedicated support team for GBPs – but it can be a “slow burn” to get help, according to Agrawal. And you may not be assigned a human if your case isn’t deemed worthy of one, or if you don’t provide much detail in your form.
So, in sum – if your GBP is suspended, it can be an arduous process getting it back up. And the damage a missing profile can do to your business is devastating.
What’s more, Google only seems to be getting stricter with its crackdowns. In his opinion piece, Holyoake referenced a recent statement by a Google employee who said that the company took down 12 million fake business profiles in 2024.
“With my recent experience and countless posts on Reddit and Google’s support forums detailing similar experiences, I’m willing to bet a great chunk of those ’12 million fake businesses’ are not fake,” said Holyoake.
As both an SEO specialist and a Product Expert, Agrawal deals with GBP suspensions all the time, to the point that he jokes about them keeping him in business.
“Business profile violations are how we break our bread,” he said. “But it’s really hard. I really pity the business owners.”
