November 3, 2024 • 16 mins
In this episode, Meredith and her husband discuss issues surrounding Google Business Profile suspensions, offering strategies to prevent suspensions and steps to take for reinstatement. They explain common triggers, like address-related issues and frequent user-edit suggestions, and emphasize the importance of monitoring business listings closely. They recommend tools like WhiteSpark to manage citations effectively, which helps Google verify business information. These tips can help business owners maintain visibility and avoid common pitfalls in Google's local search system.
Resources:
https://whitespark.ca/local-platform
https://support.google.com/business/answer/4569145
Chapters
[0:24] Introduction to Google Business Profile Suspensions
[0:51] Profile Suspension Due to Business Name Issues
[1:09] Importance of Maintaining a Verified Profile
[2:06] Common Reasons for Profile Suspensions
[3:17] Misunderstandings About Suspension Causes
[4:29] Competitor Manipulation and Address Changes
[6:07] Steps to Contact Google Support
[6:57] Suspension Impact on SEO and Search Visibility
[8:08] Monitoring and Managing Business Listings
[10:47] Tips for Preventing Address-Based Suspensions
---
Meredith's Husband
https://www.meredithshusband.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Meredith's husband (00:00):
This episode we're talking about Google
suspensions suspensions to yourGoogle business profile, how you
can prevent them and how youcan restore your business if
it's already happened to you.
Do you remember about a yearago when I started, I officially
I got the domain nameMeredith's husbandcom and I was
(00:21):
setting it up in Google.
I set up my my Google localbusiness profile and it got
suspended.
Meredith (00:26):
Yes, right off the bat .
Meredith's husband (00:27):
Yes, In my case, that was because of the
business name.
The business name was flagged.
They didn't believe it was areal business and so they shut
it down.
I actually had to go out andregister the business name
Meredith's husband and then sendthem proof that it was a
business and they put it back on.
And then send them proof thatit was a business and they put
it back on.
But this issue that issue havingyour Google local business
(00:49):
profile suspended is notuncommon for local business
owners.
It seems that it happens.
Yeah, it's fairly commonactually, and, on the flip side,
it's also really important tohave your business profile not
be suspended.
As a local business owner, youreally want to have it there, so
it can be a frustratingsituation.
Yeah, because, like I said,there's I don't, in fact, I
(01:10):
think it's probably for a local,a small local business owner.
I think it's more common forthem to have issues with this
than to not have any issues,like you have not had any issues
with yours, because I've beenmaintaining it from the
beginning and doing some stuffto ensure that it doesn't get
suspended.
Meredith (01:30):
My question is what can we do when it gets suspended
and what can we do then to helpit not get suspended?
Meredith's husband (01:42):
Those are two questions I'm actually going
to answer.
So in my case, it was mybusiness name that got my
profile flagged.
It's usually an addresssituation, and the reason for
that the reason why Google is socareful about verifying
addresses is that so many peoplehave tried to spam this system
over the years.
I would say less than reputableSEO firms and SEOs and business
(02:06):
owners.
They try to set up severallocal businesses so that they
can have more than one listingon that front page of Google.
Meredith (02:13):
For example, just like in New York, would they say
Park Avenue and make imaginaryaddresses?
Meredith's husband (02:19):
They've tried that.
They've tried literallyeverything, but what happens is
or what has happened, the onethat I know of as being the most
common is they'll get severaldifferent business addresses.
They'll just go get a mailboxIf you're in Manhattan, let's
say, you'll get a mailbox inMidtown, a mailbox on the Upper
West Side, upper East Side,downtown, union Square, all
these different places in effortto grab more business, and
(02:43):
people have gone to pretty greatlengths, I would say, to spam
the system, and so Google hastried to combat that, I think,
erring on the side of caution.
Meredith (02:52):
Right.
Meredith's husband (02:53):
And that's why people tend to get suspended
, especially when it has to dowith addresses.
Now, the theory that mostpeople have when their business
is suspended, like this I shouldsay a lot of people, a lot of
business owners.
Is that somebody you know?
They think oh, somebodyreported my business as being
closed and so Google shut itdown.
Meredith (03:13):
Oh, I would just think I'm you know like, oh, there's
something I did wrong and nowI'm getting in trouble.
Yeah, no, there's number one.
Meredith's husband (03:20):
There's nothing you did wrong.
But also that's I've neverheard of that happening, like
reporting that another businessis closed and then Google just
shutting down the business.
Meredith (03:29):
Yeah, why wouldn't they double check that with
people?
Meredith's husband (03:32):
Yeah, I'll cover that a little bit.
But what does happen sometimesis you can go onto Google and
you can suggest an edit tosomebody else's business and you
can move their address.
Suggest an edit to somebodyelse's business and you can move
their address.
You can literally, I think, saymove the pin and you can move
the pin to a different location.
Now what has been happeningrecently is, as the business
(03:56):
owner, when you notice this andyou go back in and you change
your address again, then yourlisting is suspended.
Meredith (04:05):
When you do it back from when the people do it.
Meredith's husband (04:08):
I don't know why it happens like this, and
this will probably be atemporary situation.
One thing about these Googlebusiness listings is that Google
does change their methodology alittle bit from like every year
.
Yeah, so this might.
This case is what's happeningright now.
It hopefully will not behappening in a year, but yeah,
what happens is, let's say,you're a local photographer.
(04:28):
One of your competitorphotographers goes online and
says oh no, meredith's addressis in Westchester or something,
because they want to get rid ofyou.
They want to get rid of theircompetition.
So then Google makes thatchange.
Meredith (04:44):
See why isn't it flagged at the first time?
Meredith's husband (04:47):
Well, I'll get to that.
But then what happens?
But it just changes the address.
Meredith (04:51):
Immediately.
Meredith's husband (04:53):
And then you , not immediately, but soon.
Meredith (04:56):
Seconds later, like a day or two or a week.
Meredith's husband (04:59):
What you do is then you go in and you say oh
, my address is wrong, and youchange it back, and then your
listing gets suspended.
Meredith (05:05):
Okay.
Meredith's husband (05:05):
So in that case, if your listing has
already been suspended, there isonly one solution you have to
go to Google.
You have to go through theirsupport there I will link it
below.
I'll put a link to where you goand submit a request below and
you have to go and you have tocontact them and they will
contact you back and then youstart a dialogue with somebody
at Google.
Now, the downside is that thistakes time.
(05:27):
Remember, this is not a serviceyou're paying for.
This is something Google isdoing for free, so they are
probably under providing supportservices.
However, they do eventually getback to you.
It usually takes weeks, but Ihave never heard of a case where
Google support does not getback to you and not resolve this
(05:49):
situation.
That's the downside.
The upside is that you thenhave a contact at Google, you
have a dialogue with somebodyworking an email thread and then
(06:09):
say oh, by the way, sinceyou're helping me with this, I
have this other issue, and theother issue gets taken care of.
Now, having that sort of accessto Google is pretty much
unheard of.
Meredith (06:24):
So there's kind of a silver lining if your website is
suspended.
When your site is suspended,what does that mean?
Does that mean people?
Yeah, what does it mean?
Meredith's husband (06:32):
So that means that your business is
going to stop appearing in themap search?
Oh gosh, you're going to stopappearing as a local business
and you're also.
You know the panel on theright-hand side of the screen if
you do a Google.
If I did a search forMeredith's Dinner Photography,
there's going to be a knowledgepanel on the right hand of the
screen and it's your business,your name, your address, phone
(06:53):
number, a whole bunch of stuffthat will disappear, that's no
longer going to appear, and thisis my theory, but this is
probably going to harm your SEOrank, your organic rankings as
well.
Good thing, remember the recentGoogle leak.
Meredith (07:08):
Yes.
Meredith's husband (07:08):
We did a couple episodes about that, but
in there it became evident howimportant entities are.
Your local business is anentity as far as Google is
concerned, so it is prettylikely that the ramifications go
beyond just your local businesslisting, unfortunately.
Meredith (07:27):
I would partake in that theory.
Meredith's husband (07:31):
So if you're already suspended, that's the
only resolution.
That's what you have to do.
If your business listing hasnot been suspended, there's a
couple things you can do to helpprevent it.
Meredith (07:43):
Yeah.
Meredith's husband (07:44):
There's nothing you can do that will
guarantee that it won't happen,but there are a couple of things
you can do to help prevent it,and they're pretty simple.
So number one you've got tomonitor your listing.
You've got to know if somebodyelse suggests that your address
has changed.
You don't want to catch thatone, two, three, four, six
months into the future.
(08:05):
You want to catch that as soonas possible.
Meredith (08:07):
And you're not notified about that.
Meredith's husband (08:09):
No, you're not notified.
No, you have to monitor it.
It's your job to monitor yourown listing.
Now, if you go to GoogleBusiness Profile and log in, it
will say yes, somebody hassuggested that your address be
changed.
But Google is not going toreach out to every business
owner and say hey, somebodysuggested this, do you agree?
Meredith (08:29):
Do you think it would be that hard for them?
Meredith's husband (08:31):
You know, like I said, they're doing this
for free.
Meredith (08:34):
Is it their responsibility?
Meredith's husband (08:36):
I don't know , but it's pretty easy to
monitor.
Now you remember WhiteSparkWe've talked about WhiteSpark in
the past and how you can manageyour what we call your local
citations, your local businesslistings with WhiteSpark.
Whitespark.
Whitespark also has a serviceand I just discovered this
fairly recently where you canmonitor your business listing
every month and if there is achange then you will be notified
(08:58):
and you can also make yourchanges within WhiteSpark.
It's really nice.
It's a monthly service.
Guess what this monthly servicecosts $500.
Guess again $2.
No Too high, it's $1 a month.
Meredith (09:11):
Oh really.
Yeah it's $1 a month.
You know again, I will investin that.
That is worth it to me.
Meredith's husband (09:19):
It's worth a lot more, in my opinion, than
$1.
Meredith (09:22):
Yeah.
Meredith's husband (09:23):
Now that price, like I said, this, I
think, is a relatively newservice they're offering.
So the price might increase atsome point down the line In fact
I probably think it will, butfor $1 a month.
I suggest everybody do this.
I've done it for myself, I'vedone it for your business, I've
done it for my clients.
It's a no-brainer.
I'll put the link below yeah,that's great.
(09:44):
So then, what happens if, nowthat you're monitoring your
listing, if you do noticesomebody suggested that your
address has changed?
Here's what you should do,instead of going directly into
your Google business profile andchanging your address back.
This is what's working rightnow, and this is something.
If you're listening to this, ayear from now, this method might
(10:06):
not work anymore.
This is one of those thingsthat Google will probably change
, but right now, what seems tobe working is you log out of
Google.
You log out of the account youuse to manage your Google local
business.
You log into a totally separateGmail account that does not
control any local businesslistings.
Meredith (10:23):
Okay, wait, wait, wait , wait, wait.
Time, time, time, time, timetime.
You have to.
Let's just say, you don't havea non-business Gmail, you have
to create one.
Meredith's husband (10:31):
Right.
Meredith (10:31):
Okay, I'm just, I want to be basic.
Get all the you knowinformation.
Meredith's husband (10:38):
Right, create a free Gmail account.
Okay, go to your businesslisting and suggest.
Recommend to them.
Recommend to Google, by usingthis suggest and edit feature,
that your address be changedback.
Okay to Google, by using thissuggest and edit feature, that
your address be changed back.
Because if, like I said,remember, if you go right into
your Google business profilethen change the address, you're
likely, or it's much more likely, that you're then going to be
(11:00):
suspended.
That's so weird.
Meredith (11:01):
Even though it's coming from within your account.
Meredith's husband (11:04):
Right, but for some reason and I don't know
what spams have led Google totake this action, but I
guarantee there are peopletrying to take advantage of the
system that Google is preventingby doing this.
Meredith (11:17):
Undoubtedly.
Meredith's husband (11:18):
And, like I said, people are going to
continue to come up with newscams and Google's going to have
to change these methods, butthis is what's working right now
, okay.
Meredith (11:27):
Okay, that's a good protection.
Meredith's husband (11:29):
Okay, the other thing you can do.
Meredith (11:31):
Yes.
Meredith's husband (11:32):
To prevent this.
Yes, if you have not done thisalready, you have to manage your
own business citations.
Remember again, in WhiteSpark,whitespark is a solution to do
this.
Your business citations are theother business listings you
have on like Yellow Pages onYelp, on Facebook, all these
(11:52):
others.
If you have, say, five dozenother business listings out
there, all with your address,and somebody suggests to Google
that your address is not correct, it's going to be less likely
that Google is going to changeyour address to begin with,
because it can verify it acrossfive dozen other websites.
If you have not done that, ifyou have not set up to manage
(12:15):
your local citations and youdon't have those other business
listings, google has lessinformation to verify your
address with and it is morelikely to change it.
Meredith (12:25):
Okay.
Meredith's husband (12:25):
I recommend doing that.
We've done one or perhaps eventwo podcast episodes about that,
and I have a tutorial onexactly how to do that.
Meredith (12:33):
Okay, can you link that below?
Meredith's husband (12:36):
I will link that below.
Meredith (12:37):
Just in case you're a first-time listener, hello and
welcome.
Then somebody may not have anyidea what you're talking about,
so it'll sound, I will link itbelow.
Perfect, so you can look atthat.
Meredith's husband (12:50):
And this is also a white spark service that
I do recommend, and one of thereasons I think it's a good
solution is because you canstart really small.
You do need a budget.
This is a paid service, but youcan start, and I cover this in
the tutorial.
You can start with a very smallnumber of listings, like very
inexpensively.
Then, if you see there areproblems and by problems what I
(13:12):
mean is If your business hasever changed address, if you've
moved your home and your homeaddress is your business address
, or you've moved from an officeto your home or your home to an
office if you've ever changedyour domain name or a different
office.
If you've changed your domainname, if you've changed your
phone number, then you're goingto have conflicting citations
(13:35):
out there, conflicting localbusiness information, and that's
not good either.
If you go to Whitespark and youdo the smallest package, they
will come back and they willtell you if there are conflicts
out there, then you should takethe next step and go further and
resolve those conflicts on asmany directories as you can.
If your business has neverchanged address, never changed
phone number, never changedwebsite name, then you probably
(13:59):
will not have any conflictinglistings.
Meredith (14:02):
Right, I kind of whenever you mention white
sparks, do you think of whitestripes, the white stripes, the
band.
Meredith's husband (14:09):
No, I don't.
Meredith (14:10):
Me neither.
Meredith's husband (14:12):
Glad we got that.
Meredith (14:13):
It's just a very important question that
everybody is everybody listening, right is thinking I knew it.
Meredith's husband (14:20):
But that's it.
It's relatively easy.
Meredith (14:23):
Thank you, that's a very, very topical tip.
Meredith's husband (14:27):
Oh, one thing A portion of the
photography industry that seemsto be hit with this more than
others is the boudoirphotography space.
Huh, because you're kind ofverging on adult content there.
Meredith (14:40):
Interesting.
Meredith's husband (14:41):
If you're, for example, if your images have
a lot of skin tone in them.
That is one of the ways thatGoogle for many, many years,
identified pornography is theamount of skin tone that was
shown in an image or video.
So if you have a lot of skin, inyour images a machine is
probably going to flag yourimages right off the bat.
(15:04):
So, no matter what, if you'redealing with this, google is not
picking on you.
It's not your fault.
You didn't do anything wrong.
Like I said, this is fairlycommon, and when you consider
that Google is sending orpresenting your business to
dozens or hundreds or thousands,or even tens of thousands of
people for free, right, this issomething you're not paying for.
Meredith (15:27):
Yeah.
Meredith's husband (15:28):
I think it's fair for Google to say okay,
you have to jump through acouple hoops for us.
Meredith (15:33):
That's fair enough, I agree, I agree.
Meredith's husband (15:35):
I think so.
It's worth the price, Even ifyour business gets suspended.
I know it's frustrating.
I know, it's frustrating, butit's time really well invested
to reach out to Google get itreinstated.
I've never seen a businesslisting not be reinstated.
Okay, unless it's actually afake business yeah, okay.
This episode we're talking about Google
suspensions suspensions to yourGoogle business profile, how you
can prevent them and how youcan restore your business if
it's already happened to you.
Do you remember about a yearago when I started, I officially
I got the domain nameMeredith's husbandcom and I was
(00:21):
setting it up in Google.
I set up my my Google localbusiness profile and it got
suspended.
Meredith (00:26):
Yes, right off the bat .
Meredith's husband (00:27):
Yes, In my case, that was because of the
business name.
The business name was flagged.
They didn't believe it was areal business and so they shut
it down.
I actually had to go out andregister the business name
Meredith's husband and then sendthem proof that it was a
business and they put it back on.
And then send them proof thatit was a business and they put
it back on.
But this issue that issue havingyour Google local business
(00:49):
profile suspended is notuncommon for local business
owners.
It seems that it happens.
Yeah, it's fairly commonactually, and, on the flip side,
it's also really important tohave your business profile not
be suspended.
As a local business owner, youreally want to have it there, so
it can be a frustratingsituation.
Yeah, because, like I said,there's I don't, in fact, I
(01:10):
think it's probably for a local,a small local business owner.
I think it's more common forthem to have issues with this
than to not have any issues,like you have not had any issues
with yours, because I've beenmaintaining it from the
beginning and doing some stuffto ensure that it doesn't get
suspended.
Meredith (01:30):
My question is what can we do when it gets suspended
and what can we do then to helpit not get suspended?
Meredith's husband (01:42):
Those are two questions I'm actually going
to answer.
So in my case, it was mybusiness name that got my
profile flagged.
It's usually an addresssituation, and the reason for
that the reason why Google is socareful about verifying
addresses is that so many peoplehave tried to spam this system
over the years.
I would say less than reputableSEO firms and SEOs and business
(02:06):
owners.
They try to set up severallocal businesses so that they
can have more than one listingon that front page of Google.
Meredith (02:13):
For example, just like in New York, would they say
Park Avenue and make imaginaryaddresses?
Meredith's husband (02:19):
They've tried that.
They've tried literallyeverything, but what happens is
or what has happened, the onethat I know of as being the most
common is they'll get severaldifferent business addresses.
They'll just go get a mailboxIf you're in Manhattan, let's
say, you'll get a mailbox inMidtown, a mailbox on the Upper
West Side, upper East Side,downtown, union Square, all
these different places in effortto grab more business, and
(02:43):
people have gone to pretty greatlengths, I would say, to spam
the system, and so Google hastried to combat that, I think,
erring on the side of caution.
Meredith (02:52):
Right.
Meredith's husband (02:53):
And that's why people tend to get suspended
, especially when it has to dowith addresses.
Now, the theory that mostpeople have when their business
is suspended, like this I shouldsay a lot of people, a lot of
business owners.
Is that somebody you know?
They think oh, somebodyreported my business as being
closed and so Google shut itdown.
Meredith (03:13):
Oh, I would just think I'm you know like, oh, there's
something I did wrong and nowI'm getting in trouble.
Yeah, no, there's number one.
Meredith's husband (03:20):
There's nothing you did wrong.
But also that's I've neverheard of that happening, like
reporting that another businessis closed and then Google just
shutting down the business.
Meredith (03:29):
Yeah, why wouldn't they double check that with
people?
Meredith's husband (03:32):
Yeah, I'll cover that a little bit.
But what does happen sometimesis you can go onto Google and
you can suggest an edit tosomebody else's business and you
can move their address.
Suggest an edit to somebodyelse's business and you can move
their address.
You can literally, I think, saymove the pin and you can move
the pin to a different location.
Now what has been happeningrecently is, as the business
(03:56):
owner, when you notice this andyou go back in and you change
your address again, then yourlisting is suspended.
Meredith (04:05):
When you do it back from when the people do it.
Meredith's husband (04:08):
I don't know why it happens like this, and
this will probably be atemporary situation.
One thing about these Googlebusiness listings is that Google
does change their methodology alittle bit from like every year
.
Yeah, so this might.
This case is what's happeningright now.
It hopefully will not behappening in a year, but yeah,
what happens is, let's say,you're a local photographer.
(04:28):
One of your competitorphotographers goes online and
says oh no, meredith's addressis in Westchester or something,
because they want to get rid ofyou.
They want to get rid of theircompetition.
So then Google makes thatchange.
Meredith (04:44):
See why isn't it flagged at the first time?
Meredith's husband (04:47):
Well, I'll get to that.
But then what happens?
But it just changes the address.
Meredith (04:51):
Immediately.
Meredith's husband (04:53):
And then you , not immediately, but soon.
Meredith (04:56):
Seconds later, like a day or two or a week.
Meredith's husband (04:59):
What you do is then you go in and you say oh
, my address is wrong, and youchange it back, and then your
listing gets suspended.
Meredith (05:05):
Okay.
Meredith's husband (05:05):
So in that case, if your listing has
already been suspended, there isonly one solution you have to
go to Google.
You have to go through theirsupport there I will link it
below.
I'll put a link to where you goand submit a request below and
you have to go and you have tocontact them and they will
contact you back and then youstart a dialogue with somebody
at Google.
Now, the downside is that thistakes time.
(05:27):
Remember, this is not a serviceyou're paying for.
This is something Google isdoing for free, so they are
probably under providing supportservices.
However, they do eventually getback to you.
It usually takes weeks, but Ihave never heard of a case where
Google support does not getback to you and not resolve this
(05:49):
situation.
That's the downside.
The upside is that you thenhave a contact at Google, you
have a dialogue with somebodyworking an email thread and then
(06:09):
say oh, by the way, sinceyou're helping me with this, I
have this other issue, and theother issue gets taken care of.
Now, having that sort of accessto Google is pretty much
unheard of.
Meredith (06:24):
So there's kind of a silver lining if your website is
suspended.
When your site is suspended,what does that mean?
Does that mean people?
Yeah, what does it mean?
Meredith's husband (06:32):
So that means that your business is
going to stop appearing in themap search?
Oh gosh, you're going to stopappearing as a local business
and you're also.
You know the panel on theright-hand side of the screen if
you do a Google.
If I did a search forMeredith's Dinner Photography,
there's going to be a knowledgepanel on the right hand of the
screen and it's your business,your name, your address, phone
(06:53):
number, a whole bunch of stuffthat will disappear, that's no
longer going to appear, and thisis my theory, but this is
probably going to harm your SEOrank, your organic rankings as
well.
Good thing, remember the recentGoogle leak.
Meredith (07:08):
Yes.
Meredith's husband (07:08):
We did a couple episodes about that, but
in there it became evident howimportant entities are.
Your local business is anentity as far as Google is
concerned, so it is prettylikely that the ramifications go
beyond just your local businesslisting, unfortunately.
Meredith (07:27):
I would partake in that theory.
Meredith's husband (07:31):
So if you're already suspended, that's the
only resolution.
That's what you have to do.
If your business listing hasnot been suspended, there's a
couple things you can do to helpprevent it.
Meredith (07:43):
Yeah.
Meredith's husband (07:44):
There's nothing you can do that will
guarantee that it won't happen,but there are a couple of things
you can do to help prevent it,and they're pretty simple.
So number one you've got tomonitor your listing.
You've got to know if somebodyelse suggests that your address
has changed.
You don't want to catch thatone, two, three, four, six
months into the future.
(08:05):
You want to catch that as soonas possible.
Meredith (08:07):
And you're not notified about that.
Meredith's husband (08:09):
No, you're not notified.
No, you have to monitor it.
It's your job to monitor yourown listing.
Now, if you go to GoogleBusiness Profile and log in, it
will say yes, somebody hassuggested that your address be
changed.
But Google is not going toreach out to every business
owner and say hey, somebodysuggested this, do you agree?
Meredith (08:29):
Do you think it would be that hard for them?
Meredith's husband (08:31):
You know, like I said, they're doing this
for free.
Meredith (08:34):
Is it their responsibility?
Meredith's husband (08:36):
I don't know , but it's pretty easy to
monitor.
Now you remember WhiteSparkWe've talked about WhiteSpark in
the past and how you can manageyour what we call your local
citations, your local businesslistings with WhiteSpark.
Whitespark.
Whitespark also has a serviceand I just discovered this
fairly recently where you canmonitor your business listing
every month and if there is achange then you will be notified
(08:58):
and you can also make yourchanges within WhiteSpark.
It's really nice.
It's a monthly service.
Guess what this monthly servicecosts $500.
Guess again $2.
No Too high, it's $1 a month.
Meredith (09:11):
Oh really.
Yeah it's $1 a month.
You know again, I will investin that.
That is worth it to me.
Meredith's husband (09:19):
It's worth a lot more, in my opinion, than
$1.
Meredith (09:22):
Yeah.
Meredith's husband (09:23):
Now that price, like I said, this, I
think, is a relatively newservice they're offering.
So the price might increase atsome point down the line In fact
I probably think it will, butfor $1 a month.
I suggest everybody do this.
I've done it for myself, I'vedone it for your business, I've
done it for my clients.
It's a no-brainer.
I'll put the link below yeah,that's great.
(09:44):
So then, what happens if, nowthat you're monitoring your
listing, if you do noticesomebody suggested that your
address has changed?
Here's what you should do,instead of going directly into
your Google business profile andchanging your address back.
This is what's working rightnow, and this is something.
If you're listening to this, ayear from now, this method might
(10:06):
not work anymore.
This is one of those thingsthat Google will probably change
, but right now, what seems tobe working is you log out of
Google.
You log out of the account youuse to manage your Google local
business.
You log into a totally separateGmail account that does not
control any local businesslistings.
Meredith (10:23):
Okay, wait, wait, wait , wait, wait.
Time, time, time, time, timetime.
You have to.
Let's just say, you don't havea non-business Gmail, you have
to create one.
Meredith's husband (10:31):
Right.
Meredith (10:31):
Okay, I'm just, I want to be basic.
Get all the you knowinformation.
Meredith's husband (10:38):
Right, create a free Gmail account.
Okay, go to your businesslisting and suggest.
Recommend to them.
Recommend to Google, by usingthis suggest and edit feature,
that your address be changedback.
Okay to Google, by using thissuggest and edit feature, that
your address be changed back.
Because if, like I said,remember, if you go right into
your Google business profilethen change the address, you're
likely, or it's much more likely, that you're then going to be
(11:00):
suspended.
That's so weird.
Meredith (11:01):
Even though it's coming from within your account.
Meredith's husband (11:04):
Right, but for some reason and I don't know
what spams have led Google totake this action, but I
guarantee there are peopletrying to take advantage of the
system that Google is preventingby doing this.
Meredith (11:17):
Undoubtedly.
Meredith's husband (11:18):
And, like I said, people are going to
continue to come up with newscams and Google's going to have
to change these methods, butthis is what's working right now
, okay.
Meredith (11:27):
Okay, that's a good protection.
Meredith's husband (11:29):
Okay, the other thing you can do.
Meredith (11:31):
Yes.
Meredith's husband (11:32):
To prevent this.
Yes, if you have not done thisalready, you have to manage your
own business citations.
Remember again, in WhiteSpark,whitespark is a solution to do
this.
Your business citations are theother business listings you
have on like Yellow Pages onYelp, on Facebook, all these
(11:52):
others.
If you have, say, five dozenother business listings out
there, all with your address,and somebody suggests to Google
that your address is not correct, it's going to be less likely
that Google is going to changeyour address to begin with,
because it can verify it acrossfive dozen other websites.
If you have not done that, ifyou have not set up to manage
(12:15):
your local citations and youdon't have those other business
listings, google has lessinformation to verify your
address with and it is morelikely to change it.
Meredith (12:25):
Okay.
Meredith's husband (12:25):
I recommend doing that.
We've done one or perhaps eventwo podcast episodes about that,
and I have a tutorial onexactly how to do that.
Meredith (12:33):
Okay, can you link that below?
Meredith's husband (12:36):
I will link that below.
Meredith (12:37):
Just in case you're a first-time listener, hello and
welcome.
Then somebody may not have anyidea what you're talking about,
so it'll sound, I will link itbelow.
Perfect, so you can look atthat.
Meredith's husband (12:50):
And this is also a white spark service that
I do recommend, and one of thereasons I think it's a good
solution is because you canstart really small.
You do need a budget.
This is a paid service, but youcan start, and I cover this in
the tutorial.
You can start with a very smallnumber of listings, like very
inexpensively.
Then, if you see there areproblems and by problems what I
(13:12):
mean is If your business hasever changed address, if you've
moved your home and your homeaddress is your business address
, or you've moved from an officeto your home or your home to an
office if you've ever changedyour domain name or a different
office.
If you've changed your domainname, if you've changed your
phone number, then you're goingto have conflicting citations
(13:35):
out there, conflicting localbusiness information, and that's
not good either.
If you go to Whitespark and youdo the smallest package, they
will come back and they willtell you if there are conflicts
out there, then you should takethe next step and go further and
resolve those conflicts on asmany directories as you can.
If your business has neverchanged address, never changed
phone number, never changedwebsite name, then you probably
(13:59):
will not have any conflictinglistings.
Meredith (14:02):
Right, I kind of whenever you mention white
sparks, do you think of whitestripes, the white stripes, the
band.
Meredith's husband (14:09):
No, I don't.
Meredith (14:10):
Me neither.
Meredith's husband (14:12):
Glad we got that.
Meredith (14:13):
It's just a very important question that
everybody is everybody listening, right is thinking I knew it.
Meredith's husband (14:20):
But that's it.
It's relatively easy.
Meredith (14:23):
Thank you, that's a very, very topical tip.
Meredith's husband (14:27):
Oh, one thing A portion of the
photography industry that seemsto be hit with this more than
others is the boudoirphotography space.
Huh, because you're kind ofverging on adult content there.
Meredith (14:40):
Interesting.
Meredith's husband (14:41):
If you're, for example, if your images have
a lot of skin tone in them.
That is one of the ways thatGoogle for many, many years,
identified pornography is theamount of skin tone that was
shown in an image or video.
So if you have a lot of skin, inyour images a machine is
probably going to flag yourimages right off the bat.
(15:04):
So, no matter what, if you'redealing with this, google is not
picking on you.
It's not your fault.
You didn't do anything wrong.
Like I said, this is fairlycommon, and when you consider
that Google is sending orpresenting your business to
dozens or hundreds or thousands,or even tens of thousands of
people for free, right, this issomething you're not paying for.
Meredith (15:27):
Yeah.
Meredith's husband (15:28):
I think it's fair for Google to say okay,
you have to jump through acouple hoops for us.
Meredith (15:33):
That's fair enough, I agree, I agree.
Meredith's husband (15:35):
I think so.
It's worth the price, Even ifyour business gets suspended.
I know it's frustrating.
I know, it's frustrating, butit's time really well invested
to reach out to Google get itreinstated.
I've never seen a businesslisting not be reinstated.
Okay, unless it's actually afake business yeah, okay.
Popular Podcasts
Boysober
Have you ever wondered what life might be like if you stopped worrying about being wanted, and focused on understanding what you actually want? That was the question Hope Woodard asked herself after a string of situationships inspired her to take a break from sex and dating. She went "boysober," a personal concept that sparked a global movement among women looking to prioritize themselves over men. Now, Hope is looking to expand the ways we explore our relationship to relationships. Taking a bold, unfiltered look into modern love, romance, and self-discovery, Boysober will dive into messy stories about dating, sex, love, friendship, and breaking generational patterns—all with humor, vulnerability, and a fresh perspective.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com