You search your business on Google and the profile is gone, or your dashboard shows a suspension notice. Calls from the map stop. For a contractor who lives off the phone, that is a bad week, and the first instinct is to start clicking and editing until it comes back.
Suspensions feel random, but they rarely are. Google suspends profiles that look like they break its guidelines for representing a business, and contractors tend to trip those rules in the same few ways. This guide covers the causes, how to stay clear of them, and what to do if it has already happened.
Table of Contents
What a Suspension Means
Google suspends a profile when it believes the profile does not follow its guidelines. In some cases the profile stays visible but you lose the ability to manage it. In others it disappears from Maps and search until the issue is resolved. The notice in your Business Profile dashboard is the first place to look, because it may point at the policy involved.
A suspension is different from a profile that simply ranks lower. If your profile still shows and you can edit it, you are dealing with a ranking problem, not a suspension. Our guide to why you are not in the map pack covers that one.
The Common Causes for Contractors
- Keywords in the business name. Adding words like Best, Emergency or a town name after your real name breaks the guidelines.
- An address you do not really work from. Virtual offices, mailbox stores and coworking desks you do not staff are not allowed.
- A service area business showing its address. If customers do not come to you, the address should be hidden and your service areas listed instead.
- Duplicate or extra profiles. A second profile for the same business, or one for each town without a real staffed office in each.
- A pile of edits at once. Changing the name, address, phone and category in the same week can look like a takeover.
- Review problems. Reviews from employees, family or paid sources, or offering anything in return for reviews. Our guide to Google's review policy lists the rules.
- Details that do not match. A phone that rings a call center in another state, or a website link for a different business.
How to Avoid a Suspension
Prevention is mostly about keeping the profile boring in the right ways: real details, no shortcuts and slow, planned changes.
- Use your real business name, exactly as it appears on your license, trucks and invoices.
- Hide your address if you work at customers' homes, and list the towns you serve.
- Keep one profile per business, plus one for each real staffed location.
- Make big changes one at a time, and expect that a new name, address, phone or primary category can send the profile back through verification.
- Check who has owner and manager access every few months, and remove anyone who no longer works with you.
- Look at the profile each month for edits suggested by the public or by Google, and correct anything wrong.
- Ask every customer for a review the same way, and never pay or reward anyone for one.
Never create a new profile to get around a suspension. A duplicate is a guidelines problem of its own and can make the original harder to restore.
If Your Profile Is Suspended Now
Slow down before you click anything. The worst moves are the fast ones: a pile of edits, a brand new profile or several appeals filed in a row.
- Read the notice in your Business Profile and note the date and any policy it mentions.
- Compare your profile with Google's guidelines for representing your business and find what could look wrong.
- Fix the cause first, for example by removing extra words from the name or hiding the address. Expect those edits to trigger verification again.
- Gather proof that the business is real and matches the profile: business and contractor licenses, an insurance certificate, a utility bill or bank statement with the address, and photos of your signage, vehicles or shop.
- Submit one appeal through Google's Business Profile help center and answer what it asks honestly.
- Be ready for a video verification, which can ask you to show your location, your vehicle or tools, and proof that you manage the business.
Then watch your email. Google's reply time varies. If the appeal is turned down, read the reason closely before you try again. Nobody can promise a suspended profile will come back, but an honest appeal with matching documents gives Google what it needs to review it.
Keep the Phone Ringing While You Wait
A suspension hits the map, not your whole presence online. Your website can still rank in the regular results, which is where strong service and city pages earn their keep.
- Call back every recent lead and past customer you can.
- Make sure your website shows your phone number clearly on every page.
- Keep your listings on Bing Places, Apple Business Connect and Yelp accurate.
- Use paid search ads if you need calls this week, so the gap does not empty your schedule.
Who Should Have Access to Your Profile
Some suspensions start with a change nobody in the office remembers making. Keep yourself as the primary owner. Give staff and any marketing company manager access, never ownership, and remove access the day someone leaves.
If a past agency set up the profile under its own account, ask for primary ownership to be moved to you now, while things are calm. Untangling ownership in the middle of a suspension is much harder.
Your Suspension Prevention Checklist
- Business name matches your license and signage, with no extra words.
- Address hidden if customers do not visit you, and no virtual office.
- One profile per real location.
- Primary ownership sits with you, and old users are removed.
- Big edits planned one at a time, with the verification risk in mind.
- A monthly check for suggested edits and notices.
- Review requests that follow Google's rules.
Keeping the profile clean is part of our Google Business Profile work. We plan changes before we make them and check the profile every month. See how it fits a trade on our electrician SEO page. The profile, the website and the monthly SEO come in one plan starting at $999/month.