Mass GMB Suspensions relating to Google Manager Access?

[RFKSolutions]

Wondering if anyone has any insights into the recent Mass GMB suspensions, and in particular regarding Google GMB manager access, with any account associated with a particular manager account being suspended? Reading lots of different posts on FB groups, a lot of them coming back to a tool called Local Viking in particular.

 

[dsb264]

There is a bit of a buzz among the SEO community and apparently there are GMB manager accounts that Google has "flagged". Any GMBs associated with those accounts are being flagged.

One person I know of, let's call him Alex, used a GMB optimization service from a vendor (which probably ranks in the somewhere middle region of the black hat-white hat scale, let's say) for 5-10 GMB listings. The vendor's GMB account, the one used for optimizing the listings, was something like "VendorName@Gmail.com" and was linked to those 5-10 GMB listings. Those 5-10 GMB listings were all suspended but the remainder of GMB listings in Alex's account, that didn't have "VendorName@Gmail.com" as a user, were all fine.

The vendor eventually published a comment in a private FB group admitting that 3 of their 10 manager emails had been flagged.

 

[dsb264]

I should add that the Local Viking hypothesis seems to be debunked, from what I've read over the past couple of days. The argument is that Local Viking uses a legit Google API, supposedly it wouldn't cause these suspensions. The cause for the confusion is that a lot of people using Local Viking are also using certain vendors for GMB optimizations, and those vendors have manager accounts that got flagged.

 

[freerunr]

We've had lots of suspensions in our agency account, and we thought the issue might be us! But we've also seen some in other accounts. The conclusion we've come to so far is that Google is on a suspension spree for our industry (law firms), but there could be more than one variable involved. (Here's the thread where me and some others have discussed it: Mass GMB Suspensions? - Local Search Forum)

 

[BenFisher]

If you are having mass suspension, do reach out to support, as they may be able to help you reinstate in bulk if there is no real issue.

 

[freerunr]

If you are having mass suspension, do reach out to support, as they may be able to help you reinstate in bulk if there is no real issue.

Hopefully others have more success than us in that, since the response to a Twitter DM to them about our ~50 suspensions was basically "deal with it"

 

[Belen C]

I had the same issue. I contact them (via chat) and still waiting almost a month since they told me that they are working on my case. 10 listings got suspended.
At first i make sure that all the listings were following the guidelines so i ask for a reinstatement and all were denied the day after i claim them. After doing some research i realize the reason was coming from the reputation manager that was the owner of those 10 listings.
So now i took her from all listings and ask for the reinstatement again, almost a month since that though. So frustrating!

 

[RFKSolutions]

thanks, guys for your replies, thankfully I do not have mass suspensions, but we offer GMB post service along with some others for some clients and was a bit worried as we had multiple accounts linked through our manager account

from more reading I did last night, definitely also think more being targeted at fake GMBs also

 

[RFKSolutions]

Meant to add also from my research last night, it got nothing to do with the tool I mentioned in the original post, Local Viking.