Almost every industry is being classified as “duress” these days by Google, which essentially means a vertical that is highly prone to scams meant to trap users when they’re most vulnerable and need urgest service. It started back in the day with locksmiths and has grown to be too many categories to count. The most common types are service-based industries such as HVAC repair, mold remediation, personal injury lawyers, and of course, garage door repair.
The Problem: Most businesses are not prepared for Google My Business (GMB) reinstatement because they are usually out of GMB compliance in one way or another, from something as small as adding a keyword to the business name, to the address being listed is a personal residence. This can cause the reinstatement process to take weeks or even months as opposed to a single day. User edits can also cause suspensions – I once saw a user move a pin marker to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Additionally, sometimes a reinstatement can go horribly wrong and you can lose most if not all of your GMB profile, including reviews.
Goal: Prepare a garage door profile for compliance with the guidelines in case of a suspension.
Step One: Analyze all GMB, website, and business details for data integrity checks.
Step Two: Backup all aspects of GMB.
The Timeline:
Jan 7 2020: The listing was suspended, and we were contacted.
Jan 8th 2020: We audited the profile and found that four points out of 16 were out of compliance. These four points were enough to block a reinstatement.
Jan 22nd 2020: Submitted for reinstatement.
Jan 24th 2020: Listing was reinstated.
April 2020: As a result of a sweep, the profile was suspended – reinstated in one day.
November 2020: Suspended as a false positive – reinstated in two days.
The Result: The initial reinstatement took 17 days, costing the merchant $2,000/Day = $34,000 in lost revenue. They were suspended three times in this one year. Since they were prepared for future suspensions, we were able to get them back online in short order. In addition, the merchant once tried to reinstate themselves and GMB lost the reviews! We were able to prove the reviews with our data and GMB was able to locate them and reattach them to the profile.
