There seems to be a much higher level of Google Business Profiles suspended in the past couple of weeks than one would typically see. So a higher number of businesses set up in Google Maps are being suspended and removed from the Google local search results.
A Local Search Forum thread has a ton of complaints about this starting last Monday and increasing throughout the past week. Supposedly this has been going on for the past two to three weeks already.
The first post was from Jaimie S. who wrote “Is anyone else experiencing an unprecedented amount of GBP suspensions? I had 3 separate profiles suspend after doing a post on the account. Other accounts are suspending after making changes to business hours or main categories. These are across 3 different countries and listings are managed by different Users (in different countries, different logins etc). Its been about 1-2 weeks of this.”
Jason Brown in the thread wrote “I spoke with a buddy of mine who said he has seen a sharp increase in suspensions in the last 2 weeks. He said and I quote, “Google is acting like they won’t be able to suspend anyone in October, so they are going buck wild in September.””
Joy Hawkins added later “Yep, we’re seeing this as well. We have one that my entire team uses and it was sending texts to me all last week any time someone logged in. I’ve had lots of agencies say they are seeing an increase in suspensions in the last 2 weeks so it’s not just you.”
There is a debate on if this is a bug with Google or Google enforcing some policies it has not enforced beforehand. We do not know more as of right now.
If you scan through the Google Business Help forums you will see tons of complaints about businesses being suspended.
Forum discussion at Local Search Forum.
