Prospect Genius

A new bug in the Google Business Profile system causes reviews to disappear, negatively affecting business’ visibility and online presence.

Having a robust online presence is a must for any business today, and customer reviews are a huge part of that. Reviews help establish a business’ credibility and serve as a direct connection with customers.

If a company has a Google Business Profile (GBP), their reviews are linked to that account. That usually works well—until, as happened this November, there’s a bug in the system.

Last month, business’ reviews started disappearing for no discernible reason. This comes on the tail of the October GBP bug that led to the unwarranted suspension of hundreds of accounts. As soon as the suspension bug was resolved, it looks like the reviews bug was brewing.

This issue of disappearing reviews seems to be linked to a Suggested Edits update. Google autogenerates these updates and requires listing managers to manually reject changes they don’t want (which is particularly troublesome since many of the auto-generated updates end up being inaccurate). In November, these updates—which are supposed to only change business information—also started removing reviews from business’ online listings.

So, what happened? It appears that the Suggested Edits updates also changed the CID number of profiles at the same time. The CID is an identifier assigned by Google to specify a business’ location within Google’s own systems.

When the CID gets changed, Google then sees the new number as a new listing. This disassociates the listing from the original GBP and the existing reviews. It also seems to eventually make the reviews disappear altogether.

We may not know why this is happening, but everyone can agree that it’s bad news! When a business loses reviews, it diminishes their online presence, damages their reputation, and erases hard-earned customer trust.

The good news: it should be possible to reinstate any lost reviews—as long as you know your original CID number as well as the new one. If your business has been impacted by this bug, you’ll need to reach out to Google via a GBP support forum, state what happened, and furnish both the new and old CID numbers. With that information, Google should be able to retrieve and reinstate your reviews.

You’ll also want to make sure that your business information is accurate since the GBP Suggested Edits update that started the problem may also have put incorrect business details in your profile. You can do this by clicking “Actions” within your account.

Moving forward, consider keeping your own records of customer reviews in case there are future issues with the GBP system. Whether you set up a system to get automatic emails any time there’s a new review, or you build a spreadsheet to track the details, having that information saved on your end will give you a solid backup and peace of mind.

If this review reinstatement process feels overwhelming, don’t panic! Instead, reach out to Prospect Genius for GBP Rescue service. We have over 10 years of experience interfacing with Google on behalf of small businesses and we’re ready to put that experience to work for you.

At Prospect Genius, we know how important an active and accurate GBP is and we’re here to make sure yours is taken care of. Don’t risk your reviews disappearing forever— call us today for GPB Rescue!

Rescue your Google Business Profile today!

Having a Google Business Profile (GBP) is standard practice for most business in 2022. This online listing helps potential clients find key business information like services, location, hours, and phone number when they search the web using Google Search or Maps.

Unfortunately, in October of 2022, there was a bug in the GBP system. Usually, businesses are able to perform minor edits to update their GBP without incident. In October, however, hundreds of business owners had their GBP suspended for no discernible reason.

Actions that resulted in account suspension included:

• Editing business name
• Editing hours
• Editing a description
• Marking a business as temporarily closed
• Adding website parameters
• Clicking the verify button

While the suspension process is designed to safeguard the integrity of GBP listings, suspension for the above actions was unusual. It’s normal for businesses to make small edits to their profiles in order to reflect updates and changing business information. The fact that these minor edits caused account suspension meant that something was wrong on Google’s end.

While Google has confirmed that the bug causing the unexpected suspensions has been resolved as of the afternoon of Friday, October 21, 2022, the trouble is far from over. Every account that was suspended has to go through a verification process in order to have its listing restored.

This means that a business with a suspended account has to function without a GBP until the verification process is complete. Unfortunately, the large number of suspensions that occurred in October have caused a significant backlog within the Google support network. Some business with suspended accounts are having to wait 25–30 business days for account reinstatement.

Additionally, the verification process is rarely straightforward. Businesses typically have to email back and forth with Google numerous times, providing everything from proof of address to business licenses to confirm the accuracy and authenticity of their GBP.

With Google having approximately 80% of the search market share, not having an active GBP can be a massive blow to a business. It means loss of visibility and subsequent loss of clients and revenue.

GBP suspension and long reinstatement times can also mean loss of SEO ranking for affected businesses. Both of these issues can have long-term negative consequences on business visibility and activity well beyond the suspension timeframe.

Resolving a GBP suspension can be a time-consuming and difficult process for even the most savvy business owner. If you need help navigating the reinstatement process, call the team at Prospect Genius for our GBP Rescue service.

Prospect Genius has over 10 years of experience navigating the Google framework and we have a 95% success rate in recovering Google Business Profiles. Call today and let us help you get your GBP back on the web where it belongs!

Rescue your Google Business Profile today!