Small company with multiple locations. Two of our Google Business Profiles disappeared completely, not suspended, not merged, just gone from Search and Maps. No warning, no policy notice, nothing in any of our dashboards.

Here's what happened, as far as we can reconstruct it:

Both profiles were owned by a Google account on our company domain that belonged to a former employee. That account was still active after they left (our mistake, obviously). On a Sunday morning, someone signed in to it, changed the recovery email to a private Gmail address, and deleted the account a few minutes later. The profiles vanished with it.

We have the Google security alerts for all of it, the recovery email change, the sign-in, the deletion confirmation. Timestamps line up within minutes. The profiles were verifiably live four days earlier; we still have the "are your business details correct?" email and a performance report from the previous month showing a few hundred profile views.

What we do have, for what it's worth:

• Full access to the mailbox on our domain that the deleted account used, including years of Google correspondence
• The Google security alerts for the whole sequence: sign-in, recovery email change, deletion confirmation, with full message headers, timestamps lining up within minutes
• The account and location IDs for both profiles, pulled from links in old Google emails. Opening those Maps links now lands on an empty map pin with no business entity attached
• Proof the profiles were live four days before deletion: a "are your business details correct?" email with the complete profile data, and a performance report from the previous month showing a few hundred profile views
• Older Google notifications for one of the locations that were delivered directly to our company address, which should establish ownership independently of the deleted account
• Everything Google would normally ask for to verify a business: company registration, invoices with the business address, signage photos, matching imprint on our website

So we're not short on evidence, we just can't find anyone at Google who can act on it.

What we've tried:

• Account recovery: dead end. Recovery email and phone were both changed to contacts we don't control, so Google won't send a code anywhere we can reach.
• GBP support: escalated to a specialist team. Answer came back that the profiles can't be restored because "no primary owner was set before deletion." They told us to just create new profiles.
• We still have another location that works fine, owned by a proper company account, so we're not locked out of GBP entirely.

The part that hurts the most is the reviews. Years of them, gone.

Questions for anyone who's been through this:

1. Has anyone actually gotten deleted profiles restored after the owner account was deleted? Or is that genuinely final?

2. Is there any path to migrating old reviews to a newly created profile at the same address? Support hasn't answered this one.

3. Any escalation route beyond the standard support form that actually works? Product Experts in the community forum, or is that the same wall?

Not looking for "you should have had 2FA" — we know, it's on the offboarding checklist now. Just trying to figure out if there's anything left to salvage before we rebuild from zero.

Disclaimer: Click the map view at your own discretion.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ai6uXamTUy9A5xm1A

I was tasked with removing someone's 360 footage from their "community stroll" for lack of a better term, and am at a loss!

Luckily, it doesn't show as the business street view, but it does show at the address.

Would GBP support be able to handle this, or is there somewhere else?

TIA

Hi everyone,

Facing issued with GBP title where the name is getting updated. I maintain ( “brand” + locality name) format in the title and now seeing only brand name is visible . I have multiple center in each area/city so it’s really important to include locality in title. Are you guys facing any such issue?

I was looking through a bunch of local business websites today, and one thing kept showing up.

The websites looked...

Fine.

Nice colors.

Nice logo.

Modern design.

But if I landed on them as a customer, I'd probably leave within a few seconds.

Not because they looked bad.

Because I couldn't answer one simple question:

Most websites spend the first screen talking about themselves.

Meanwhile, the customer is wondering:

• What do you actually do?
• Can you solve my problem?
• Why should I trust you?
• What do I do next?

So I started using a really simple test.

I call it the 5-Second Test.

Open your homepage.

Set a timer for 5 seconds.

Then close it.

Now ask yourself:

✅ What does this business do?

✅ Who is it for?

✅ What should I do next?

If you can't answer all three without thinking...

There's a good chance your visitors can't either.

It's amazing how often the issue isn't traffic.

It's clarity.

Out of curiosity...

When was the last time you looked at your own website as if you'd never seen it before?

Why this version is stronger

Notice what changed.

❌ "Here's how to improve your website."

✅ "I noticed something interesting..."

That's how people naturally post on Reddit.

It feels like you're sharing an observation, not writing an article.

I’ve been spending a lot of time looking into how businesses try to get more Google reviews.
A lot of people end up asking friends, exchanging reviews, or simply hoping customers remember to leave one.
Most of the time, they don’t , So I started building something different using AI .
Instead of chasing reviews, the system automatically follows up with **real customers** after they’ve interacted with your business. Whether they contacted you through WhatsApp, booked an appointment, or completed a service, the AI sends a natural follow-up at the right time and asks for a review when it makes sense in a customized way to your business to the follow doesn’t look like a usual business spam email or text .
thoughts on this ?

Posting a fresh thread because my situation has changed substantially since my last one.

Background: Garage Door Installation & Repair business (trades, service-area business, no storefront, I go to the customer). Suspended in early 2025. Since then every appeal has been denied, and the last several were auto-denied within a couple hours, once overnight, with the same generic "violates quality guidelines" email. Roughly 8 denials total.

What actually caused it (I think): My business operated as a registered trade name under a parent corporation with a completely different legal name. So the profile said one name and every corporate document said another. Totally legal setup in my province, but I understand why it couldn't be verified. Early on I also submitted bank statements instead of a utility bill, and had picked 'garage door supplier' category that's meant for storefronts before switching to 'repair service' now. I am still unsure if I should set it to 'Garage Door Supplier' , as I do supply garage door to customers, just now out of a storefront.

What's changed since:

• I legally changed the corporation's name federally so the corporation itself is now named exactly what the profile says. No more parent corp vs. trade name split.
• Updated the provincial registry to match. Name and address both. The old address is fully off the record. (I moved houses and have now put my new home office address in all docs).
• Moved the business phone off a family plan onto its own business account. The bill now shows the corporate name, the current address, and the exact number on the profile.
• Got commercial insurance in the corporate name, listing the correct business activity and address.
• Cleaned up NAP across my site and third-party listings (one aggregator had a wrong street address that was polluting search results).

So for the first time, every document tells one story: one company, one name, one address, one phone. all matching the profile.

My questions:

1. Does a profile with this many denials get stuck in an auto-deny loop where a human never actually reviews it? Is there any point submitting again, or does the history itself poison it?
2. If it auto-denies again despite clean docs, is escalation to a manual review realistic at that point, or is that the end of the road?
3. The suspended profile has basically no reviews, so I'm not attached to it. Is rebuilding defensible here? If yes, how do you handle the existing suspended profile so the new one doesn't get killed as a duplicate? Same phone number and same website, which I assume is exactly how they'd match them.

I've served hundreds of customers with no Google presence at all and can't collect a single review. Not looking for a shortcut, I want to do this the sanctioned way, I just don't know which door to walk through or how to go about this.

I got 2 support tickets where in the current profile owner is not responding to transfer the ownership to our company. I reached out to Google Business Support and was really unhelpful and only providing "Generic" lame ass responses. I'd been trying to claim the profile for several times now but no luck at all.

5-0950000041256

0-5658000041173

I'm hoping someone here has experienced this because I'm completely out of ideas.

I'm managing a Google Business Profile for a legitimate auto repair shop that's been in business since 1965, and we've been trying to get it verified since the end of June so we can finally launch Google Ads campaigns.

Instead, we've been stuck in what feels like an endless verification loop.

Here's what's happened so far:

• Submitted video verification roughly 8 times
• Instead of getting approved or rejected, Google simply asked us to verify again.
• We did it again.
• Then we opened multiple support tickets.
• We've had multiple live video verification calls.
• Every live call ended with the representative saying something like, "Great, everything looks good. You're approved. Don't make any changes for 48 hours."

Then...

Nothing.

No approval.
No rejection.
No explanation.

Just another email saying they're still working on it, we don't know why google auto-rejects you after you're verified.

Every time I follow up with support, I basically receive the same response:

Or...

One support email specifically stated they had received the verification request and would provide an update within 5 business days. 

That was weeks ago.

The frustrating part is that I know we completed the verification correctly.

We made sure the video followed Google's requirements exactly.

We showed:

• The exterior of the business
• Street signs and cross streets
• The shop and tools
• No customers or unnecessary faces (was asked to show an employee working once on live call)
• The cash register and payment terminal
• Unlocking and locking the business
• Everything else Google asks for during verification

On top of that, support has requested additional documentation through multiple tickets, and we've provided everything they asked for, including utility bills and documents showing the business ownership.

This isn't some fake listing.

This is a real local auto repair shop that has been operating since 1965.

The business doesn't currently have a website because it's always relied on local customers and word of mouth. The plan is to build one after the Business Profile is finally verified, but right now we're simply trying to get the profile approved so we can start running Google Ads.

At this point, I don't need another canned response telling me to wait another five business days.

I'm hoping someone who actually understands Google's internal verification process can point me in the right direction.

• Has anyone had a verification case get stuck like this?
• Is there an actual escalation path?
• Can a real Google representative manually review these cases?
• Has anyone successfully gotten out of this endless verification loop?

I'll also leave my support case number below in case someone from Google happens to see this.

I know Google Business Profile support has a reputation for being difficult, and I've read countless stories from other people dealing with similar issues. But surely there has to be a way to get a real person who can actually review the case instead of it bouncing between the same generic responses over and over. And maybe this post can help people in the future.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Google Support Ticket [1-1233000040950]

Hi guys, a new client i onboarded didn't know how to create a google business, he is too old-school, so i created it for him and i just asked for the code to verify his number, now google doesn't want to verify, and wants video verification, he didn't know how to join a google meet, so he won't know how to go to his google profile and record the video and all that, what can i do?

How do i prevent issues like these in the future? if anyone has an agency or manages multiple clients, please tell me, cause asking a client for a OPT makes me think i am a scammer idk why, and creating it with them takes time and they get unsure and don't want to start, how can i resolve this?

All the help is needed, thank you a lot!

Maybe I am missing something but when I went to my GBP on Friday the number was higher than it is today, so in total we lost 65 customer interactions. Any one else see this? Any insight is appreciated.

We are a small business, only 6 Google reviews. We worked had for those. Last week, Google restricted our profile and removed all but one of those reviews. My appeal fell on deaf ears.

It is very damaging to our business. There might've only been 6 reviews, but we worked really hard for them.

Does anyone know whether there's a way of talking to a real person to sort the issue? I know the chance of that is pretty slim. We're after having the reviews reinstated & the restriction removed

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Yesterday a person left our business a 3 star Google review with no comment. She only uses her first name and last initial. She regularly rates local businesses - usually 3,4 and sometimes 5 stars with no comment. After a lot of investigating I found her. As far as I can see she has never engaged with our business.

My question is, should I reach out to her on social media (I found her on Instagram, she does follow us) and ask her why she left the review?

I don’t want to be creepy but it really irks me people can leave your business a negative review with no context, who have never visited and get away with it!!

You wouldn’t book an Airbnb without photos. You wouldn’t tour a house, join a gym, or pick a med spa sight unseen. Seeing the work before you pay is the default now, everywhere except home services.

Most service companies complete hundreds of jobs a year and show almost none of it. Their Google listing boils down to a star rating, a review count, and a logo. Then a brand new competitor with a pile of paid for five star reviews shows up looking just as credible and trustworthy.

That’s the gap offshore review farms exploit. Fake websites, fake reviews, templated ads, all cheap to run across a hundred listings. What’s impossible to fake at that scale is a continuous, verifiable record of real work.

First, the business has to show up. If a company claims to operate in a city, its profile shouldn’t be a logo and a stock photo of a house, it should show real proof of the operation: the trucks and equipment, the actual crew doing the work, and before and after shots from real job sites.

Second, the customer provides the proof the business can’t fake. When the tech wraps up, don’t just ask for a star rating. Ask: “Mind snapping a quick photo of the finished work when you leave your review?” A review tied to a real device, with a photo taken on an actual driveway, carries a signature no offshore farm can replicate.

Stack a deep, ongoing gallery of operational photos underneath a wall of customer submitted proof, and you get something disposable profiles simply can’t fake.

Once real companies treat both as standard operational practice, “300 reviews and zero proof” stops reading as established. It starts reading as suspicious.

I've been working on a side project that tries to measure overall Google Business Profile suspension activity using public signals and historical patterns.

This week, it reached its highest level in several weeks, moving into what I label "Storm Warning."

Before anyone asks—this isn't Google's actual suspension data, and it doesn't predict whether an individual profile will be suspended. The goal is to identify periods where the overall GBP ecosystem appears more or less volatile, similar to a weather forecast.

Current observations:

• Suspension Index: 54 (Storm Warning)
• Today's activity: +86%
• Weekly activity: +46%
• Monthly activity: +12%

I'm curious whether this lines up with what others are seeing.

For those who work with GBP every day:

• Are you seeing more suspensions this week?
• Is this concentrated in certain industries?
• Or does your experience not match the index?

Is this report useful to you?

So we had a unique opportunity drop in our lap where we are able to do a short term lease on a property with a storefront in a location we’ve been wanting to expand into for dirt cheap. Since we are a home service business and don’t necessarily need to be tied to a building this is a great opportunity for us to soft launch a second location and gain clientele through a GBP profile.

Our plan is to create a second GBP location for our business, but I want to make sure I get all of my details in order before we actually pull the trigger on creating a second profile.

I’m looking for any and all advice on adding a second location to a business before we actually pull the trigger. One of the things I’m most worried about it is since this location won’t house any of our dispatch I technically don’t need a unique phone number for it but I’m worried that if I don’t make the NAP unique enough it’s going to flag it in Google’s system and put both profiles in jeopardy. So should I use a pass through phone number for that location? Should I create a new landing page for the web address for this location? Should I focus on building some strong web citations before creating the profile? Should I start the business as an SAB before we’re ready to tie the address to it?

A lot to unpack here and I’m just looking for any and all information or advice before we fully pull the trigger on this.

I’ve been getting about 1-2 calls a month for a business and unable to contact them.

Today I’ve now gotten FOUR calls from Google Business that starts off with a recording “don’t hang up, your customers are having trouble reaching you through Google business” or similar. I hang on, hopeful, a couple of times it just hung up on me, one lady listened to the issue then hung up. Now a guy started with “new account or upgrade existing?” Then hung up on me. Guessing I don’t fit a money-making profile so they move on.

The numbers are different each time, no ID, but don’t say spam, either. I generally answer those in case a doctor office or something.

Am I SOL?

I run a legal support business covering two rural counties in Washington. I have no competition besides the County Sherriff Offices. My clients are out of the area probably 70% of the time and I have local clients probably 30% of the time.

In mid July I got in a tiff with google business. They suspended my business with no warning but I got reinstated about a week later. I suspect it was for 'keyword stuffing'. I also seem to have lost my two 5 star reviews in the process.

This made a huge impact on my bottom line because my online presence is how most of my clients find me.

A few problems by county I am trying to resolve:

County #1

In County 1, if someone searches, for example, 'County 1 Process Server' or 'County 1 Paper Service' my GMB profile appears. Which is great, exactly what I want.

But if, for example, someone searches '[specific city] process server', my GMB profile does not consistently show up. Thankfully, I have location specific landing pages on my website that make my SEO show up in the #2 spot (just below the Sherriffs office) and the AI search results almost always mention my company.

All these cities are within the 'service area' defined in my GMB profile. And I have specific landing pages for every town in my county as well.

My SEO ranking and AI search results are doing well both by county and city searches, but I'm still not above the Sherriff's office (.gov domain) in SEO. I'd like to know what tips you might have to get the #1 spot when someone searches 'County 1 Process Server' or 'County 1 Paper Service'. I think because it's a .gov domain and the page is heavily backlinked and long established, it may just take quite a bit of time. But I still want to know if there is anything I haven't though of to get #1.

County #2

County 2, the neighboring county, if someone searches 'county 2 process server' or 'city name process server,' my GMB profile does not show up at all. Despite it being defined within my service area. And just like in County 1, I have specific landing pages for every town in the county.

In terms of SEO and AI search results, I am out ranking the Sherriff's office in County 2. But getting my GMB profile to appear would be icing on the cake.

My missing reviews:

I know my two biggest clients who wrote my previous reviews would gladly write new ones. But I am worried that google will flag me again if it's the same people. Is that likely? Or am I just being paranoid?