Google Business Profile suspended? It might be a simple fix.

The automated systems at Google have been renowned for suspending Google Business Profiles for as long as the platform has existed (all the way back to when it was called GMB, or Google My Business).

If your Business Profile has been suspended, here’s the steps to restore your business’ presence in Google Search results so you can get back to business.

There are two types of suspensions: soft and hard. The first step is to determine the type of suspension your Profile has been inflicted with.

Determine the type of suspension you have

1. In your web browser, open a tab without cookies so that you’re not logged into a Google account. This will be called different things depending on your browser of choice: Incognito (Chrome), Private Browsing (Safari), InPrivate (Edge), Private Tab (Firefox) or Private Window (Brave).
2. Go to google.com and search for your Business

If you see your business, congratulations – you have a soft suspension (that’s good)! If you don’t, unfortunately you’re going to have a harder time appealing this type of hard suspension.

Restore your Google Business Profile

Prefer to leave it to the experts? You may be eligible for a no-fix-no-fee recovery!
Get in touch to discuss our Digital account recovery service.

Your first step to recovery, regardless of the suspension type, is to gather information. There are many, many different guidelines and terms of service that govern use of the Google Business platform and it’s often not easy to know exactly what breach (if any) has triggered your Profile to become suspended. Here are the three main sets of rules:

• Guidelines for representing your business on Google
• Prohibited & restricted content
• Overview of Google Business Profile policies

We’ve painstakingly taken all of the rules from each of these webpages and turned them into a checklist. Get in contact with us and we’ll send you a copy of the checklist for free.

Once you’ve reviewed all communications from Google, all attached Google accounts and Workspace or Cloud Identity organisations, and of course the Google Business Profile itself, hopefully it’s clear whether or not your Profile is in breach of guidelines and if so, which particular guideline was breached.

Appeal a soft suspension

This can be a very simple fix. Here’s some scenarios:

In Google Business Profile Manager, you’re prompted:

1. to verify your Business Profile, click verify and follow the flow;
2. to appeal the suspension, jump to the ‘hard suspension’ section below;
3. that the attached ‘Google Account not in good standing’, follow the steps below.

In some situations, soft suspensions are entirely unrelated to the Business Profile. If that applies to your situation, here’s a simple fix:

Appeal a hard suspension

A hard suspension means you’ll need to make an appeal to recover the Business Profile. The broad steps are outlined below but beware, you only get a limited number of appeals and reviews so consider speaking with an expert before proceeding. Here are the steps for appealing a hard suspension:

1. Write a letter outlining why you believe the suspension should be lifted and attach proof of your association with the business. Submit your appeal here: Manage appeals for your Google Business Profiles
2. If this appeal is denied, take a step back to try to understand why. It’s a good idea to contact Google support to try to get any amount of extra details to help determine exactly what is going on in the background. Once you have rewritten your appeal, you can Request additional review of a denied appeal.
3. If the review is also denied, you’re going to have to engage an expert

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We hope the details provided in this article have helped bring order to the chaos for your business. The article is by no means exhaustive so if you’d like more details about anything in particular, please get in touch.