Your Google My Business listing is like the beautiful green vine that you’re climbing to get your business up to the top of the food chain. But what happens when you lose access to that profile?
One of the most urgent requests that I receive, as King of the Jungle, is to help my constituents regain access to their profiles so that they can once again lead their pack. Without access to managing their GMB profile, these businesses are essentially stuck in quicksand – panicking, slowly sinking, and in need of a strong, furry hand to help them out!
In this guide, I’ll go over the (frustrating) details of why you may have lost access to your Google My Business profiles and what you can do to regain access!
Losing Access to Your Google My Business Listing
Losing access to your Google My Business Listing is an extremely stressful situation. One day, you’re minding your own business, updating Posts, responding to reviews, and optimizing your profile. The next day, you’re locked out and your password isn’t even the issue!
So, what gives?
It turns out that losing access to your Google My Business listing can happen for a number of reasons. The most common include:
Duplicated Profile
In some situations, your profile may get locked if it was marked as a Duplicate by Google. When this happens, Google My Business has determined that two profiles already exist for the same location of your business. While you’d think that Google would eliminate the more established profile (which would be the one you’re regularly managing), this doesn’t always happen. We’ve worked with hundreds of businesses that got their listing marked as a duplicate and shut down even though it was their main/only profile!
Revoked Manager Access
If you’ve suddenly lost access to your Google My Business listing, double check your manager access. You see, multiple profiles can manage a single Google My Business listing. If someone has changed your access, you may suddenly notice that the profile has disappeared or that you no longer have the same level of access as you previously did.
Make sure to talk with your team to check if your access was changed. If this is the case, you may have to work with them rather than Google My Business to regain your access to manage the profile.
Suspended Profile
According to Google, there are three main reasons that a profile could be suspended – each involving a different level of suspension. Here’s their breakdown:
- If we remove a profile, the public can no longer access the profile. The owner and managers can’t take actions on its behalf, though they can appeal to have the profile reinstated. If the profile is reinstated, we’ll also reinstate the owner and managers.
- If we remove the owner’s Google Account, we also remove all the locations owned by that user. If we reinstate the owner’s Google Account, we’ll also reinstate the locations.
- If we remove a manager’s Google Account, we suspend the manager on the accounts they manage, but the locations aren’t affected. If we reinstate the manager’s Google Account, the manager will automatically regain managerial access to the locations.
Depending on your situation, you’ll need to take action to get the profile (or your access) reinstated. In many cases, that means you’ll need to update your profile to follow Google My Business’s guidelines and then submit a ticket to have your profile reviewed and reinstated.
How to Regain Access to Your Google My Business Listing
As I mentioned before, regaining access to your Google My Business listings is an urgent matter. Unfortunately, Google My Business doesn’t have a customer support number that you can call to straighten things out.
Instead, you’ll need to work through these options:
Evaluate and Update Your Profile
If you still have access to your profile, take a few minutes to review all of the information listed there. When a profile violates Google My Business’s quality guidelines, it is at risk of being suspended. So double check that all of your information is correct, appropriate, and not misleading to users.
Whenever you find something that can be adjusted, go ahead and make that change even if your profile isn’t live. This will help your case when a Google My Business representative reviews your profile.
Submit a Ticket for Profile Reinstatement
Once you’ve updated your profile, you can submit a ticket to Google My Business to have a representative (yes, a real human being!) review your profile. This is known as a Reinstatement Request.
This quick form will gather basic information about your business, such as:
- Whether you’ve previously submitted a reinstatement request
- If you’re the official representative of the business
- If you’ve reviewed their GMB profile quality guidelines
- If the address on your profile is permanent
- If the address on your profile is correct
- If you run a service area business
- If you knowingly have multiple profiles for the same location
Once you go through these steps, you’ll need to enter your contact information, send over the link to your profile, and enter any additional information to help your case. After you submit this request, you’ll need to wait for a representative to get back to you.
For some people, this process may take weeks to months. During this time, your profile may be completely gone or a listing you don’t manage may be the one that potential customers are seeing.
Work with GMB Gorilla
If you have lost access to your Google My Business profile, you don’t have to go through the process of regaining access on your own. After helping hundreds of businesses access their profiles after suspension or being incorrectly marked as a duplicate, I know a thing or two about going through this process.
While I don’t have any secret contacts at Google My Business, I have a very good track record of working with GMB to clear up any issues that may be costing you time and money after your profile goes down.
Lost Access to Your Google My Business Account? Let the King of the Jungle Help.
If you’ve lost access to your GMB profile, you need to move fast. With competition and predators around every corner, you’ll need to work hard to get your profile reinstated so that you can continue to rule your kingdom. Let the Gorilla step in to guide you to the top of the food chain. Contact us to get started with your profile reinstatement.
