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Hello, I'm looking for some guidance for one of my franchise clients who just had about 120 GMB listings hard suspended. I don't directly deal with the GMB (it's another vendor) but I wanted to help them out. Some background and my own ideas of why I think it might have happened:
- Before the mass suspension there were only 2 franchise listings that were suspended, each requested for re-in statement for about 3-4 weeks with no progress.
- The client is a SAB business that services all customers in their homes or businesses
- I believe most / all of the listings were set up to show the address despite it being a SAB
- There were about 6 categories per listing, some not very relevant in my opinion
- There was no keyword stuffing in the listing titles, although the city name was used for each franchise (because that's the actual franchise's name in each case)
- The industry does seem to have a lot of spam listings
- The account structure: all of the listings are managed through one account, in one location group. The master account either has owner or manager access for each of the listings (with some individual franchisees having owner access). There are about 2-3 other users with management access to the location group itself.
- The vendor who handles the listings had a response from Google shortly after they were all suspended which said something along the lines of: "there is a specific user in the account who has had their access restricted, which caused the whole account to be suspended." is this possible? it just seems very strange to me that one user with access restricted would cause all 120 to go down in the account? and if this is the case, are we talking about one of the users that manages the location group, or one of the specific franchise users tied to an individual listing? What would cause a user to get their access restricted?
- We're currently in a waiting pattern right now to figure out this user issue, but I have a strange feeling that's not actually the issue. Do you think we should take action as in trying to switch them all to proper SABs (remove the address showing) or removing unnecessary categories?
I really appreciate the help!
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Hi David R 8133
Welcome to the Google My Business community.
Answers are inline, below.
- I believe most / all of the listings were set up to show the address despite it being a SAB.
This is a big problem.
- There were about 6 categories per listing, some not very relevant in my opinion.
This may be minor problem, but won't help.
- There was no keyword stuffing in the listing titles, although the city name was used for each franchise (because that's the actual franchise's name in each case).
Forgetting legal names, is that how they actually advertise themselves, answer the phone, etc? This is rarely the case, so this is likely a problem.
- The industry does seem to have a lot of spam listings.
This should not affect these listings unless they are following the same patterns (which it looks like they are, to some degree)
- The account structure: all of the listings are managed through one account, in one location group. The master account either has owner or manager access for each of the listings (with some individual franchisees having owner access). There are about 2-3 other users with management access to the location group itself.
This is a very big problem. Franchise listings are owned by the franchisee, NOT the franchisor. The Franchisor and/or another third party can be granted access as manager, but not as the primary owner. This is the biggest problem I see with franchise SAB listings.
- The vendor who handles the listings had a response from Google shortly after they were all suspended which said something along the lines of: "there is a specific user in the account who has had their access restricted, which caused the whole account to be suspended." is this possible? it just seems very strange to me that one user with access restricted would cause all 120 to go down in the account? and if this is the case, are we talking about one of the users that manages the location group, or one of the specific franchise users tied to an individual listing? What would cause a user to get their access restricted?
Yes, this is very likely to be the root cause, though not the only one, as detailed above. I do not know how much detail Google will go into regarding finding out the account responsible, but if any accounts have not been following Google's guidelines to the letter or have had other listings suspended at any point, you should consider these tainted.
What you need to do is to get these all set up correctly, by the actual franchisee's. Remove them all from the centralised dashboard(s), and then work through with each franchisee to get them properly claimed under their individually owned accounts. Get the addresses removed, and categories and names corrected in the process.
Once this is all done, you can advise them that they have the option to grant one or more third party managers access, if they so choose, but I would strongly advise them that they risk being suspended again if they grant access to an account that was likely to have triggered these suspensions in the first place.
Finally, importantly, as a third-party who is managing other listings, it is your responsibility to ensure that you, the franchisor, any other third parties and all the franchisees are all fully aware of the Google My Business policies for third-parties, located here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/7353941
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Hi David R 8133
Welcome to the Google My Business community.
Answers are inline, below.
- I believe most / all of the listings were set up to show the address despite it being a SAB.
This is a big problem.
- There were about 6 categories per listing, some not very relevant in my opinion.
This may be minor problem, but won't help.
- There was no keyword stuffing in the listing titles, although the city name was used for each franchise (because that's the actual franchise's name in each case).
Forgetting legal names, is that how they actually advertise themselves, answer the phone, etc? This is rarely the case, so this is likely a problem.
- The industry does seem to have a lot of spam listings.
This should not affect these listings unless they are following the same patterns (which it looks like they are, to some degree)
- The account structure: all of the listings are managed through one account, in one location group. The master account either has owner or manager access for each of the listings (with some individual franchisees having owner access). There are about 2-3 other users with management access to the location group itself.
This is a very big problem. Franchise listings are owned by the franchisee, NOT the franchisor. The Franchisor and/or another third party can be granted access as manager, but not as the primary owner. This is the biggest problem I see with franchise SAB listings.
- The vendor who handles the listings had a response from Google shortly after they were all suspended which said something along the lines of: "there is a specific user in the account who has had their access restricted, which caused the whole account to be suspended." is this possible? it just seems very strange to me that one user with access restricted would cause all 120 to go down in the account? and if this is the case, are we talking about one of the users that manages the location group, or one of the specific franchise users tied to an individual listing? What would cause a user to get their access restricted?
Yes, this is very likely to be the root cause, though not the only one, as detailed above. I do not know how much detail Google will go into regarding finding out the account responsible, but if any accounts have not been following Google's guidelines to the letter or have had other listings suspended at any point, you should consider these tainted.
What you need to do is to get these all set up correctly, by the actual franchisee's. Remove them all from the centralised dashboard(s), and then work through with each franchisee to get them properly claimed under their individually owned accounts. Get the addresses removed, and categories and names corrected in the process.
Once this is all done, you can advise them that they have the option to grant one or more third party managers access, if they so choose, but I would strongly advise them that they risk being suspended again if they grant access to an account that was likely to have triggered these suspensions in the first place.
Finally, importantly, as a third-party who is managing other listings, it is your responsibility to ensure that you, the franchisor, any other third parties and all the franchisees are all fully aware of the Google My Business policies for third-parties, located here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/7353941
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Thank you for the in depth response Keith.
I agree with your points here. As far as getting the account re-instated as soon as possible (as well as making sure this does't happen again in the future), do you suggest the first thing we do is find the offending account that was the root cause? Do you know what we'd even be looking for here? They are having the franchisees log into their individual GMB accounts to look for any errors / restrictions, but that's not even a sure thing they'll do so or know what to look for. Or do you think it's more likely a restriction on one of the main users that manages the location group? If this is the case still not sure what to be looking for? If we do find the 'root' restricted user, after that is removed / fixed do you think the accounts will go back up, or do you think all the other items need to completed (restructuring entire account / setting everything to proper SABs) before they are live again?
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In terms of getting this reinstated as quickly as possible, my previous advice stands. Get these disassociated from the affected account(s) and set them up properly.
Google support is very backed up at the moment so getting any more answers from them or help is likely to take a very long time. Do as much as you can yourselves, and come back to us if you get stuck.
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