Google Says It May Unverify Inactive Local Business Listings

Local businesses that haven’t logged in to their Google My Business account in a while will risk having those listings unverified, a Google representative confirmed today.

Posting in the Google and Your Business Help Forum, Google’s Jade Wang confirmed that the company is contacting some Google My Business users that it considers to be inactive:

In some cases, we may contact Google My Business users via email to confirm that they are still actively managing a business page. If a user is unresponsive to our attempts to contact him or her and has not logged into Google My Business for a significant length of time, then we may unverify pages in the account. We’re doing this in order to continue to provide users with the best experience when they’re looking for local businesses like yours. If you find that a page in your account has been incorrectly unverified, please contact support to get assistance restoring verification.

Brian Barwig of Integrated Digital Marketing posted today about a phone conversation he had where a Google support rep said this can happen to accounts that are inactive for six months. Barwig says he discovered the issue while looking at a bulk feed account and seeing several of the listings he manages marked as “disconnected.”

Mike Blumenthal has posted the text of the email that Google sends out to warn inactive accounts about being unverified.

In her help forum post, Wang ended with this advice: “It’s a good idea to keep an eye on the inbox associated with your Google My Business (Locations) account. It’s also a good idea to regularly log into Google My Business (Locations) to confirm that your business information is current and accurate.”

[“source – searchengineland.com”]