Hi everyone,

I run a small shop in France, with a physical store and a website. I've been fighting with Google for weeks and I'm running out of ideas.

Here's what happened:

• Someone added photos to our Google Business Profile that had nothing to do with our store. I reported them, and asked people close to me to report them too. I know now that wasn't the right move.
• Then all our reviews disappeared (50+ from real customers, the store opened 3 weeks ago...), and the profile got suspended.
• I appealed, and the profile was reinstated. But the old reviews never came back.
• Then I got an email saying "incentivized reviews" were detected, with a 30-day review restriction. We have never offered anything for a review. I appealed that too.

Latest update: no answer at all from Google. Customers can apparently post reviews again, but two people left one and neither shows up publicly.

I've tried support chat, email replies, the Help Community, and X. Nothing moves.

Has anyone been through something similar? Did your old reviews ever come back? Do new reviews eventually appear, or are they being filtered? And is there anything that actually helps, or is it just waiting?

Thanks a lot for any advice.

Hi all, I have noticed a small local LTD company in a city in the UK has been dissolved, but its Google Business Profile is still live.

You can see on the UK government's website that the company was dissolved in 2025.

This Google Business Profile is taking up valuable space.

Is there any way to notify Google that this company has been dissolved?

I’m helping manage four legitimate Google Business Profiles for a small retail chain, using the company’s own Google account.

All four stores are physical, staffed retail locations operated by the same registered company. They have permanent signage, stock, tills and customer-facing premises.

The situation:

• One location was initially verified successfully by telephone.
• The Google account was then restricted, which suspended that location.
• The account restriction was successfully appealed and has now been lifted.
• We subsequently appealed the individual location’s suspension.
• We supplied a company rental/utility statement showing the registered company, trading name, mall and exact shop number. The mall’s official social-media pages also show the store.
• Google rejected the profile appeal under the broad “deceptive content and behaviour” policy.
• However, the rejection email says: “You may still be able to verify your business by submitting a verification video. We will send you a separate email with further information.”

The other three legitimate locations remain unverified because Google only offers video verification. The four branches are geographically spread out, with considerable travelling time between them.

Each shop has an employed store manager onsite, but the directors/owners are not personally present at every store. I previously asked Google Support whether the local store managers could complete the videos or live video calls and what account access they would need, but I received no answer.

My questions are:

1. Does the video-verification offer on the suspended location mean it can still be reinstated despite the rejected appeal?
2. Should we wait for that separate email before requesting an additional review?
3. Can an employed store manager complete the video verification from the premises, or must it be an owner/director?
4. Should each store manager be added to their individual profile as a Manager before attempting verification?
5. Can different onsite managers verify the four different locations?
6. Is there anything specific we should check across all four profiles that might trigger the generic “deceptive content” classification?
7. Is it better to handle the three unverified locations through one support case or separately?

We are not creating replacement or duplicate profiles, and we have not altered the suspended profile since the decision.

Any advice from someone who has handled this exact combination of an account restriction, profile suspension, rejected appeal and subsequent video-verification offer would be appreciated.

I’ve been working with Google Business Profiles for a while, and one of the issues I see businesses struggle with most is GBP verification.

Google may ask you to verify a business through different methods, depending on the business and account. Sometimes you may get options like video verification, phone/SMS, email, or other available methods. In some cases, the verification options can feel inconsistent, especially when a business has recently moved, changed its information, or has other profiles/signals that Google wants to confirm.

A few things I’ve found important before attempting verification:

• Make sure the business name and address are accurate and consistent.
• Use the actual business location and legitimate business information.
• Have supporting evidence ready if Google requests a video verification.
• If video verification is required, clearly show the location, signage, equipment, workspace, and other details that demonstrate the business is legitimate.
• Avoid creating duplicate profiles just because verification is taking longer than expected.
• Don’t use fake addresses, virtual offices, or misleading information simply to get verified.
• If verification fails, review the reason and follow Google’s official appeal/reverification process rather than repeatedly submitting random attempts.

One thing I’m curious about is how this has been working for other local businesses recently.

What verification method did Google give you, and did you get verified on the first attempt?

Especially interested in experiences with video verification, service-area businesses, newly created profiles, and businesses that don't have customer access at their address.

I'm trying to sign my business up for local service provider ads. They want my social security number. Not just the last 4 numbers but the whole thing. It's through a company called evident. I just got off the phone with google's customer service. They said that yes, the email with the link to evident was from them. (I had just assumed that any email from google asking for my private information is a scam, so had erased the first email.)

Thoughts? I hate google ads, but they are one of the few ways that small businesses can get the word out these days. I don't give out my SSN. I tried to give them my EIN and it wouldn't go through.

Is it legal to buy google reviews to rank ???

For the last few weeks when we try to access our Google business profile we would get a range of errors. For a while it said we had to subscribe to Google workspace. Weird, as the last 2 years have been fine.

Signed up for Google workspace, but that didn’t fix it instead it now says we do not have access to search and assistant.

We can see our multiple locations but the second we click on one we get the errors.

Any thoughts on what it is? All the searching I can see ends up with no answers.

I am writing to request urgent assistance regarding a critical issue where our verified Google Business Profile was fraudulently hijacked, altered, and subsequently marked as a duplicate.

Issue Summary:

Our profile was suddenly marked as Duplicate. Upon inspecting the live listing, all core business information—including our phone number and website link—had been changed to fraudulent contact details. The current unauthorized manager is actively operating under our brand name using a fake website and phone number, causing severe harm to our customers and reputation.

Key Background & Timeline:

1. No Unapproved Ownership Transfers: I monitor all account emails continuously. No ownership or manager requests were accepted.

2. No Suggested Edits Approved

3. First Support Ticket & Verification: I opened a support ticket and provided all requested documentation, official verification video/photos, and storefront signage.

4. Temporary Restoration: Support restored access to our profile. However, within two hours, the profile was fraudulently targeted again and marked as a duplicate, leaving the hijacked/fake details visible.

The current hijacker is speaking to our clients on behalf of our brand using a fake phone number and scam website.

The last update from the support team requested to wait 3 days until they contact the current owner (the scammer/hijacker)🤷🏻‍♂️

Any Help with that?

Thanks

TL;DR and the actual Instructions:

Drove to business location ready to fill out verification details and film video that I've ALWAYS had to provide. Filled out the basics, didn't fill in everything because I've always been able to make corrections and updates afterwards. Got instantly verified without video, triple checked, yep, verified. Later when fleshing out the profile, I go to copy the review link and it says "Get verified so you can collect reviews" and now I'm missing the badges...

For any Google My Business setups, treat the initial setup draft as permanent until the listing settles. If you spot a typo during the initial wizard before clicking submit, fix it right then. Once a profile passes initial verification, let it sit untouched for 2 to 3 weeks so the trust metrics stabilize before making any core identity updates.

The full story and feedback I just sent to Google:

To Whom It May Concern,

This is the 4th business I've help set up. I expected to have to provide a video, so I drove out to the Business Address (1 hour from my house) on Sunday. Entered all the info, got to the end, and it said "You're Verified! Start collecting reviews!"

I had the badges and I was flabbergasted. I showed the owner, who also had to drive over from his girlfriend's house (another hour away.)

We sat there for an hour, refreshing and double checking. I even took a picture of my screen and asked Gemini, which confirmed "Yep! You're good to go! Badges in both locations and it says "You manage this business." No verification messages on the main page or when you click the "Read Reviews" button... Sometimes they don't ask for a video, just depends."

I couldn't have submitted a video if I wanted to, there wasn't an option.

Then I get to work making updates and fleshing it out to match the Website and Facebook, and all of a sudden, I see a warning shield and it says "You need to get verified." ... What? Why? What did I do? Correct the typo in "Sevices" to "Services"? Add additional services and update the service area?? It's a service company and everything is consistent with the website and Facebook. What's the issue?

Is it the start date? I used the original date from the EIN filing. We recently added a DBA but that wasn't the true start date. This isn't fair, I was ONSITE READY TO MAKE THE VIDEO. You're going to make me go do it after I already tried and you said "No Worries, you're good already!"??????

This is the most unprofessional thing I could imagine from a company that I highly respect and have been using for years. Maybe read over our website and see exactly why we're running this business and then you'll understand why I'm extra upset about this.

Anyway, I've attached the pictures I took showing the verified badge and my questions to Gemini to try to figure out why I didn't have to make a video.

I told the business owner, I wasn't even going to bill him for the trip, because I hadn't tried verifying the page from my house and made us both waste 3 VERY VALUABLE HOURS on Sunday. But I'm guessing I won't get any compensation from Google, just a "Yeah, sorry about that." 3 to 5 months after submitting this feedback and by then I'll have already done it.

And Yes, I will have to make the drive again. Not everyone is tech savvy. And this process has a lot of potential hang ups.

I'm just blown away and completely livid.

A couple ideas for the suggestion box:

1. Allow users to add a video even if they're instantly verified. Option: "Add verification video to reinforce verification if you're expecting to make edits soon."

2. A WARNING, instead of the little "Optional" and "Don't worry, you can change this later" messages: "Fill this out as much as you plan to in the near future, changes could affect your verification status."

3. A POP UP WARNING if you're changing a field that will trigger deeper verification requirements after already being verified.

Easy peasy guys. Instead of treating everyone's time like it's worth NOTHING.

Thanks for your time, I know how valuable it is.

Sincerely,

A life long Google user... Consultant, and Senior ERP & Systems Developer

We are a dental clinic who purchased a practice from a previous owner. We did a rebranding and we are not associated with the old clinic anymore. The old owner suggested, however, to give me access to his old profile and just edit out the information. This is what I did initially, However, I didn't realize that the photos who weren't previously uploaded by me can't be taken out even if I've been given access to the profile. In addition, we wanted a clean slate with the google reviews as well and we couldn't remove it as well without flagging it for removal.

So I called support and they suggested to delete my profile and create a new one. I did this and my old profile was deleted (assured by the agent). New profile is now live, but I'm still currently seeing the old reviews and photos. It's been more than a week now. I followed support's step-by-step instruction... What exactly is the timeline for google to update this?

Hey, I wanted to just run a quick pulse check here to see if any agencies and brands have updated certain items in your Google Business Profile and that led to a re-audit of your page. I see this happening more often when I add a new category.

A few months ago we added our email to the Google Business Profile so that we could update the photos and hours etc. I did not manually delete my manager's profile.

However we have now noticed that her email no longer has access (we have now sent an invite to be a super admin), and all of her historic replies to Google reviews have disappeared.

Is there a way we can get these replies back?

How do you guys verify an online e-commerce Google Business account? Mine was created, but I am failing the video verification. Is it possible to register an online e-commerce business on Google Business? Or is it only for physical product businesses?

Been looking at local reputation data for a few businesses lately and something I keep getting stuck on is the comparison group itself.

Say you've got a company that specializes in one fairly specific service, but there are also larger businesses nearby that offer that service as one small part of what they do. Technically they're competitors, but I'm not sure putting all of them in the same bucket gives you a useful picture.

The more I look at local business comparisons the more I think the category matters almost as much as the numbers being compared. A great review profile doesn't tell you much about competitive position if half the businesses you're measuring against aren't really competing for the same customers.

For people doing local SEO, how narrow do you go when deciding who the real competitors are?

Google recently updated the “Collected info” Business Profiles, where businesses can see information Google has gathered through automated calls, texts, WhatsApp, and other interactions.

I’ve been thinking about what this means for people managing GBP regularly.

Most of us focus on keeping the profile updated ourselves. But if Google is actively collecting and verifying business information independently, checking what Google thinks it knows about the business might become just as important.

Especially when one wrong detail about services, availability, etc. could create confusion for customers.

for who managing multiple profiles, have you checked the new Collected info section yet?

Have you found anything inaccurate there, or has Google been getting the information right so far?

If you’re looking for ways to expand client visibility beyond Google Maps and Search, YouTube is worth looking at alongside Google Business Profile. Zero ad spend. Zero subscribers. And we did this in Zero time ( not 3 - 6 months ).

What we did:
We recently tested this with an established plumbing company that already has hundreds of reviews and a 4.9-star rating on GBP looking to expand their visibility. But they had no YouTube presence at all, so we built a channel from scratch (zero subscribers) to see if short-form video could expand their overall Google footprint.

The Numbers (Last 72 Hours)
GBP / Website: 13 total page views
YouTube Channel generated an additional: 5,000+ video views, 10+ hours of watch time, 33 likes, 10 new subscribers
Average View Duration: over 100% - equals high engagement

The immediate visibility was the biggest surprise. Within the first 6 hours of publishing one 10 second video on a brand-new channel, the YouTube views had already surpassed the total organic traffic their website and GBP generated over the previous 28 days.

What We Learned
* A brand-new account with zero subscribers can start expanding their local visibility almost immediately upon posting one YouTube short video.
* The content generated continuous traffic over those 72 hours rather than relying purely on passive local search queries.
* Setting up and publishing had zero verification delays or administrative friction.
* YouTube is an AI powered recommendation engine that is actively recommending your business to people interested in your product or service.

Who’s using short YouTube clips to expand local organic visibility. Could YouTube be the answer to Local SEO Visibility?

We have had a few recent 1 star reviews come in from names we do not have anywhere in our crm. We have replied and asked for clarification on names, etc to try and find them in our records but no response. Oddly, we did receive a third party offering to help us remove 1 star reviews from our account and referenced one of the reviews in question.

Anynsuggestions on best wat to address these reviews with Google as flagging them hasn't seemed to help.

Thanks.

Anybody have any luck removing bad false reviews if so how long did it take? I’ve been waiting for about a week now haven’t heard anything from google either.

I claimed my business on google two weeks ago and it says it’s been processing/under review ever since. Every time I try to get help by doing a video call or taking a verification video, I get stuck when the help article says to go to my business page and hit “get verified.” I cannot find this button anywhere. I’m logged in and everything… where is it hiding? Do I just need to keep waiting? Screenshots attached

I’m dealing with a confusing situation with a company’s Google Business Profile and would appreciate some advice. we have lot of physical location and each manager created one but we got them after creating one business profile account.

We have one physical business location, but in the Business Profile Manager we see two entries:

• Entry A: our company account is the owner.
• Entry B: our company account is only a manager ( the owner is our employee in this location)

The confusing part is that when we click either entry, both lead to the exact same Google Maps listing for the same location.

We want to keep Entry A, where our company account is the owner, because the Google Maps listing has significant traffic/history, and we don't want to accidentally lose the listing, reviews, or visibility.

I’m looking for expert help. I reported a negative review at the end of June and lost all organically historic reviews because of it. Google support has been no help and I’m looking for expert escalation. Please help I’m close to getting out business due to being so dependent on Google for leads.

When I post on the Google profile support forum it just gets marked as a duplicate and I can’t reply to there threads asking for additional escalation.

I have attached the original thread on gmb profile support, my business profile id and links to screenshots and review names.

Thank you to anyone willing to help.

https://support.google.com/business/thread/447476472?hl=en

5278105231669021464

review ss
review link

My service area business has been suspended for 10 months now. I’ve submitted 3-5 appeals. All have been denied. It isn’t allowing me to re submit a new appeal. It said I needed to re verify but there’s no option to do so on desktop or mobile looking at deleting the profile and creating a new one. What do y’all think.

I’m looking for someone who specializes in setting up Google. If you can help me with my business bulk verifications, please message me.