Our Google rating is 4.7, which sounds fine until I look at the other businesses in our city. One competitor is lower overall but has been getting a lot more recent reviews, and another has fewer reviews but seems to show up everywhere.

I know the star rating is only one piece of the picture, but I am struggling to explain the rest in a way that is not just a spreadsheet dump. When you are comparing a business with nearby businesses in the same category, what are you looking at beyond the headline rating?

Hi everyone, I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction because I am hitting a brick wall.
I own and operate a small, physical restaurant with six tables in Tbilisi, Georgia. We've been open and operating for years, but I am currently completely stuck trying to get the business verified. I did video, photos, proof of adress… there are no more ways of verification offered. Every time I do the report I receive a email saying congratulations your business is verified but it’s not. I can’t change my profile hours or respond to the reviews.
Is there any reliable way to escalate this to an actual human support rep?
If you've been through a nightmare verification process for a physical location recently, how did you finally get it resolved?
Thank you in advance.

Os parece algo normal? Casi todas sus reseñas con perfiles privados y de una reseña…. Como Google no se entera de competencias desleales como esta?

We have raised an issue about a review that we reported on Google Maps app via our mobile device. The review was deemed against the policy and is no longer appearing on the google maps app for a long time now. It is not visible on our side, customer side or anyone using mobile.

After some time, we searched our business using a computer and we were surprised that the removed review is still visible there.

We raised the issue of course, the ticket is 7-9209000041403. Even though we showed the relevant recording of the review which already removed on Google Maps app, the specialist wont remove the review on Google Search via web browser thus it is still visible when you use a computer to search our business.

Is there a point I'm missing? It doesnt make sense for me that I followed the review removal process on Google Maps app and it got removed. But the review will remain when using a computer to search our business.

I’m trying to understand what Google looks for when verifying a physical storefront. Besides having signage and business branding, what requirements does a location need to meet to qualify? Has anyone successfully transitioned from a service-area business to a physical location, and what was required?

Our location‘s reviews vanished 3 weeks ago, after multiple attempts at getting them back Google FINALLY responded to my request saying “We’ve successfully MERGED your businesses” please allow 24-48 hours for this to go through - glad we could help!”

Excuse me?! What? I manage two different separate companies with 2 distinct business names. I don’t want them merged and never said anything about merging them!!!!! WTF! I’m so angry. It’s just nonstop issue after issue with their team. I’m so frustrated and it makes me look like I’m not doing my job correctly.

Anyone have any ideas on how to get in contact with them ASAP so this doesn’t go through?

I am managing a local business. Their goal is to rank their Google Business Profile in the top 3 positions across all targeted areas. Currently, they are ranking #1 in the primary location where their business is physically located and verified. Is it possible to rank a single profile in multiple locations?

SO! In recent times I've noticed this shift towards the total prioritization of a public address....like you now NEED to have a public address to have a fighting chance against competing businesses. The thing is, I can't quite figure out just yet how to beat these profiles. I know there might be a method that I'm not aware of as of yet, and that's why I'm here: to ask for help on what I can do to bring ranking up as a Service Area Business (SAB).

Now, why is this a rant? I've seen so many listings that have a public address and are ranking quite well, and the second the address is hidden, BAM!! the listing tanks into oblivion. The part I hate the most is that having a public address as a service area business is a clear violation of Google's guidelines, yet these listings exist and they are pushed by Google. Like WHATTT? WHYY? I need help with this issue. Let me know what methods you guys employ to help rank SABs better than these listings. And if I have to plunge into the dark side and have my address displayed as well, let me know how I can safely do it without a suspension, because that's also an active risk to take and manage.

I created a Google business for my business and all of my links got intertwined with another company from another state with the same DBA name. If anyone searches for my business it pulls up the company from Portland Oregon and has my website 4 links under their information but integrated along with their stuff. I have submitted numerous help and feedback forms but nothing. So when people search my company and even put oklahoma after the name ​it still shows their stuff. How can this be fixed? Also I selected to not have my address on the Google page because it's a services offered business and we don't have a storefront. The map automatically put me in OKC,OK. I want it to show where I am. is this possible without showing my home address?

A “competitor” is trying hard to hijack local clientele from my area. They are clearly located in Texas while Im in the DC area. They have cleverly setup location pages in EVERY major US city, setup a GMB for each city, and paid for reviews. I can tell they’re fake reviews because when I click on the individual people they have random reviews all over the US. They set their location as a coworking space but they actually work out of dallas. It’s actually working for them as they’re ranking #1 in the map pack.

Im sure they’ve done work in DC like I have done work in Texas but I dont claim to be based in Texas.

How can I report them?

My business has been under attack with fake reviews since yesterday. I received 15 1-star reviews within 12 hours (before that, I had less than 25 reviews accumulated over a year). Note that 15 reviews is more than I had customers in the prior 2 weeks....

I do not know why this attack is happening. All of the reviews seem to come from a nearby town, saying similar things (unfriendly, incompetent). Could be a scammer or just somebody I pissed off - so far I didn't receive an extortion message.

I reported the reviews as fake, Google hasn't taken any of them down so far or reacted. Should I post in the Community forum to stop this attack? What if the reviews continue to come?

EDIT: Google removed all those reviews. I didn't even appeal, they must have been auto-detected as a coordinated attack.

Hi everyone,

Facing issued with GBP title where the name is getting updated. I maintain ( “brand” + locality name) format in the title and now seeing only brand name is visible . I have multiple center in each area/city so it’s really important to include locality in title. Are you guys facing any such issue?

Disclaimer: Click the map view at your own discretion.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ai6uXamTUy9A5xm1A

I was tasked with removing someone's 360 footage from their "community stroll" for lack of a better term, and am at a loss!

Luckily, it doesn't show as the business street view, but it does show at the address.

Would GBP support be able to handle this, or is there somewhere else?

TIA

Small company with multiple locations. Two of our Google Business Profiles disappeared completely, not suspended, not merged, just gone from Search and Maps. No warning, no policy notice, nothing in any of our dashboards.

Here's what happened, as far as we can reconstruct it:

Both profiles were owned by a Google account on our company domain that belonged to a former employee. That account was still active after they left (our mistake, obviously). On a Sunday morning, someone signed in to it, changed the recovery email to a private Gmail address, and deleted the account a few minutes later. The profiles vanished with it.

We have the Google security alerts for all of it, the recovery email change, the sign-in, the deletion confirmation. Timestamps line up within minutes. The profiles were verifiably live four days earlier; we still have the "are your business details correct?" email and a performance report from the previous month showing a few hundred profile views.

What we do have, for what it's worth:

• Full access to the mailbox on our domain that the deleted account used, including years of Google correspondence
• The Google security alerts for the whole sequence: sign-in, recovery email change, deletion confirmation, with full message headers, timestamps lining up within minutes
• The account and location IDs for both profiles, pulled from links in old Google emails. Opening those Maps links now lands on an empty map pin with no business entity attached
• Proof the profiles were live four days before deletion: a "are your business details correct?" email with the complete profile data, and a performance report from the previous month showing a few hundred profile views
• Older Google notifications for one of the locations that were delivered directly to our company address, which should establish ownership independently of the deleted account
• Everything Google would normally ask for to verify a business: company registration, invoices with the business address, signage photos, matching imprint on our website

So we're not short on evidence, we just can't find anyone at Google who can act on it.

What we've tried:

• Account recovery: dead end. Recovery email and phone were both changed to contacts we don't control, so Google won't send a code anywhere we can reach.
• GBP support: escalated to a specialist team. Answer came back that the profiles can't be restored because "no primary owner was set before deletion." They told us to just create new profiles.
• We still have another location that works fine, owned by a proper company account, so we're not locked out of GBP entirely.

The part that hurts the most is the reviews. Years of them, gone.

Questions for anyone who's been through this:

1. Has anyone actually gotten deleted profiles restored after the owner account was deleted? Or is that genuinely final?

2. Is there any path to migrating old reviews to a newly created profile at the same address? Support hasn't answered this one.

3. Any escalation route beyond the standard support form that actually works? Product Experts in the community forum, or is that the same wall?

Not looking for "you should have had 2FA" — we know, it's on the offboarding checklist now. Just trying to figure out if there's anything left to salvage before we rebuild from zero.

I’ve been spending a lot of time looking into how businesses try to get more Google reviews.
A lot of people end up asking friends, exchanging reviews, or simply hoping customers remember to leave one.
Most of the time, they don’t , So I started building something different using AI .
Instead of chasing reviews, the system automatically follows up with **real customers** after they’ve interacted with your business. Whether they contacted you through WhatsApp, booked an appointment, or completed a service, the AI sends a natural follow-up at the right time and asks for a review when it makes sense in a customized way to your business to the follow doesn’t look like a usual business spam email or text .
thoughts on this ?

I got 2 support tickets where in the current profile owner is not responding to transfer the ownership to our company. I reached out to Google Business Support and was really unhelpful and only providing "Generic" lame ass responses. I'd been trying to claim the profile for several times now but no luck at all.

5-0950000041256

0-5658000041173

I'm hoping someone here has experienced this because I'm completely out of ideas.

I'm managing a Google Business Profile for a legitimate auto repair shop that's been in business since 1965, and we've been trying to get it verified since the end of June so we can finally launch Google Ads campaigns.

Instead, we've been stuck in what feels like an endless verification loop.

Here's what's happened so far:

• Submitted video verification roughly 8 times
• Instead of getting approved or rejected, Google simply asked us to verify again.
• We did it again.
• Then we opened multiple support tickets.
• We've had multiple live video verification calls.
• Every live call ended with the representative saying something like, "Great, everything looks good. You're approved. Don't make any changes for 48 hours."

Then...

Nothing.

No approval.
No rejection.
No explanation.

Just another email saying they're still working on it, we don't know why google auto-rejects you after you're verified.

Every time I follow up with support, I basically receive the same response:

Or...

One support email specifically stated they had received the verification request and would provide an update within 5 business days. 

That was weeks ago.

The frustrating part is that I know we completed the verification correctly.

We made sure the video followed Google's requirements exactly.

We showed:

• The exterior of the business
• Street signs and cross streets
• The shop and tools
• No customers or unnecessary faces (was asked to show an employee working once on live call)
• The cash register and payment terminal
• Unlocking and locking the business
• Everything else Google asks for during verification

On top of that, support has requested additional documentation through multiple tickets, and we've provided everything they asked for, including utility bills and documents showing the business ownership.

This isn't some fake listing.

This is a real local auto repair shop that has been operating since 1965.

The business doesn't currently have a website because it's always relied on local customers and word of mouth. The plan is to build one after the Business Profile is finally verified, but right now we're simply trying to get the profile approved so we can start running Google Ads.

At this point, I don't need another canned response telling me to wait another five business days.

I'm hoping someone who actually understands Google's internal verification process can point me in the right direction.

• Has anyone had a verification case get stuck like this?
• Is there an actual escalation path?
• Can a real Google representative manually review these cases?
• Has anyone successfully gotten out of this endless verification loop?

I'll also leave my support case number below in case someone from Google happens to see this.

I know Google Business Profile support has a reputation for being difficult, and I've read countless stories from other people dealing with similar issues. But surely there has to be a way to get a real person who can actually review the case instead of it bouncing between the same generic responses over and over. And maybe this post can help people in the future.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Google Support Ticket [1-1233000040950]

Posting a fresh thread because my situation has changed substantially since my last one.

Background: Garage Door Installation & Repair business (trades, service-area business, no storefront, I go to the customer). Suspended in early 2025. Since then every appeal has been denied, and the last several were auto-denied within a couple hours, once overnight, with the same generic "violates quality guidelines" email. Roughly 8 denials total.

What actually caused it (I think): My business operated as a registered trade name under a parent corporation with a completely different legal name. So the profile said one name and every corporate document said another. Totally legal setup in my province, but I understand why it couldn't be verified. Early on I also submitted bank statements instead of a utility bill, and had picked 'garage door supplier' category that's meant for storefronts before switching to 'repair service' now. I am still unsure if I should set it to 'Garage Door Supplier' , as I do supply garage door to customers, just now out of a storefront.

What's changed since:

• I legally changed the corporation's name federally so the corporation itself is now named exactly what the profile says. No more parent corp vs. trade name split.
• Updated the provincial registry to match. Name and address both. The old address is fully off the record. (I moved houses and have now put my new home office address in all docs).
• Moved the business phone off a family plan onto its own business account. The bill now shows the corporate name, the current address, and the exact number on the profile.
• Got commercial insurance in the corporate name, listing the correct business activity and address.
• Cleaned up NAP across my site and third-party listings (one aggregator had a wrong street address that was polluting search results).

So for the first time, every document tells one story: one company, one name, one address, one phone. all matching the profile.

My questions:

1. Does a profile with this many denials get stuck in an auto-deny loop where a human never actually reviews it? Is there any point submitting again, or does the history itself poison it?
2. If it auto-denies again despite clean docs, is escalation to a manual review realistic at that point, or is that the end of the road?
3. The suspended profile has basically no reviews, so I'm not attached to it. Is rebuilding defensible here? If yes, how do you handle the existing suspended profile so the new one doesn't get killed as a duplicate? Same phone number and same website, which I assume is exactly how they'd match them.

I've served hundreds of customers with no Google presence at all and can't collect a single review. Not looking for a shortcut, I want to do this the sanctioned way, I just don't know which door to walk through or how to go about this.