Over the past few weeks there have been many disgruntled business owners reporting that their Google My Business accounts have been inexplicably suspended. There is no clear cause of the suspensions and a backlog has meant that some profiles are being kept offline for weeks before finally being reinstated by Google.
It has been suggested that this wave of suspensions has occurred because of an attempt by Google to start weeding out the millions of fake or invalid profiles that pollute the My Business universe. Those who have been suspended may be collateral in an algorithm run by Google to automatically achieve this.
Having your account suspended can be extremely frustrating and even damaging to your business. The way this has been dealt with by Google – with no explanation as to why accounts have been suspended and then incredibly slow response times to reinstatement submissions – is also far from ideal. We can only hope that they improve these processes in the future.
However, if there’s a positive to come from this, it’s that Google are hopefully taking action against fake profiles. There’s no doubt that a few of you reading this would have illegitimate My Business profiles appearing in the local pack above your own for certain Google searches. If numerous accounts were swept up to be removed in the recent suspension wave then expect to see a spike in users that find your business as you move up to your rightful position. This would only be a net positive for businesses into the future.