A Warning Before You Change Your Own Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile generates more phone calls and clicks to your website than you probably realize.

And it’s an incredibly fragile asset.

One simple change could get your listing suspended, sometimes within a few minutes.

Certain Fields Trigger Suspensions

Google sees changes to these sections as red flags:

Business name – adding a word or two to the name field, including your city or your primary service can look like you’re trying to stuff a keyword.

Primary category – Every profile can have a primary category, and up to 9 secondary category. Your primary category should be the most specific category in your vertical. So when you change this, it basically tells Google that what you do today is different that what you did before.

Address – Yes your business can move to a new location, but changing the address on your profile before Google has a chance to verify this address is legitimate can trigger a manual review..

Phone number – Consider all the directories that have a phone number already listed for your business, so when Google sees a different phone number it will lead to a verification.

Search Engine Land covers this subject well in their article “5 Reasons Your Google Business Profile Might Get Suspended”, saying that Google sometimes suspects spam when they see certain core fields changed. Google has automated processes in place to detect and mitigate spam, and views changes to a business’ name, address, phone number and primary category as suspicious.

What A Suspended Google Business Profile Means

Not all suspensions in Google are the same. Sterling Sky talks about suspended Google Business Profiles as two types:

Soft suspension means that your profile is publicly visible, but you’re unable to make any edits to it. That means customers can still find it, and you won’t see a drop in calls or clicks to your website.

Hard suspension takes your Google Business Profile out of Google Maps and Google Search completely. So when someone searches your main service or product plus your location, your business doesn’t show up at all. Even your pin on Google Maps disappears until you get it resolved.

Lately there’s been a rise on businesses reporting suspensions according to Search Engine Roundtable, with people saying appeals and reinstatements are taking weeks or even months.

What Can You Do?

Wanting to update your profile is fine, especially if it’s a legitimate change. But the problem isn’t always about the change itself, rather how Google’s automated systems see the update.

At Saltworks we manage many Local SEO campaigns for businesses across a variety of industries, and one thing we always recommend to our clients is to treat us as a partner. That means looping us in well in advance of any changes to the business.

So if you’re eyeing a larger space across town, or want to expand services into a different category, a heads up before making the change on the Google listing can literally be the difference between an easy update and weeks (or months) of lost visibility.