Hello, my name is Tim Coleman and I am your host. I am also the managing partner A2O Digital a full service digital marketing agency working exclusively with home service businesses. Our guests today are Ashley ventricle and Julie Campbell, both members of the A2O digital team. Ashley has been working in digital marketing since 2008. And Julie since 2015. Both have spent a significant amount of time working with Google and its products, Ashley and Julie, welcome. As usual, there's a lot changing at Google right now today, we're going to discuss the big changes that are coming to Google Business Profile, you know, often referred to as GBP. A lot of business owners might call this part of the page like either maps or local, my guest today have been working with businesses as they are experiencing some of the changes that are already occurring, and are currently working to prepare for a big change coming for suspended listings, that once they get suspended, they need to get reinstated. And that's kind of a process in its own. Let's talk through the various scenarios we've been running into with new listings existing listings and what we expect to see coming kind of to a theater near us soon. So let's kind of start what has been your experience recently, with new Google My Business listings that are that we're creating from scratch a new listing, let's let's start the conversation with new listings.

Sure, in the past couple of months prior in the past used to be a postcard verification. So Google would mail a postcard to the to location, once location received the postcard it had a code on it, you would go back to the profile put in the code and your in your listing was live a few months back, they changed that process, Google changed that process to a video verification. So business owners actually have to go to their location and record a video at their location, upload it to Google, that then gets processed and approved by Google in order for the local listing to go live. Now, with any new process, there's often challenges.

So let me interrupt here, Julie. So here's the end of the famous postcard. It's over?

You know we work with home service businesses, so I'm not positive that that's definitely the case 100% for every business category out there for as far as home services and industry that we work with 100% video verification.

Okay, so the industry is home services we've been working with, it's that somebody should play tops for the postcard or something. I don't know. Like, that's an end of an era.

Yeah, I mean, I think they're trying to get crack down on spam. And this just makes it a little bit more challenging for people to spoof and fake by having it, yeah, it totally makes sense. But with any new process, it's often riddled with bugs. And this, of course, was no different. We had, there's been a bunch of issues with people going to upload the video, you don't do it live with a Google rep or anything like that, you actually, you press a button, record it and then press it to upload it into the profile. And it's we've had issues run into issues where the video won't upload properly. And then once it is uploaded, it would go into a processing phase and kind of be stuck in this processing phase and then revert back and make you start all over again, then you'd go to do it a second time and it gets stuck in processing again, and in some cases been stuck in the processing phase for days. And then the business owners wondering, do I need to make this recording again, or where are we with this process. So it's been a buggy process. It's a frustrating process for busy, very busy business owners that have to do this multiple times. Recently, some product experts have been posting that a lot of these video bugs have been fixed. So there's been acknowledgment that it has been an issue. There are known bugs, and they're working on that. The last one that our agency has done, the video went through very smoothly with zero issues. So I'm hoping this is the end of like those types of bugs. Once your video verification goes through, and it's processed and your profile's live, you often see maybe 24 or 48, even a week later that listing immediately goes back into suspension after no one having touched anything or not done anything. So you've just passed me for verification, yay, my listings live. And then it goes back into suspension and you have to submit for a reinstatement. So that happens most often I would say 9 out of 10 times the listing is going to get suspended. Once you're suspended, you have to make sure you have all your documents on file so that you can fill out reinstatement forms and try to plead to Google to get that listing back up again, after having gone through all the video rigmarole. A lot of times and more recent reinstatements we're seeing it get denied by Google they're in we know there's an upcoming change happening to the reinstatement process is currently in the EU, it's going to be rolling out to the US probably momentarily. It feels like they're starting to make changes to move to this new system. And a lot of the reinstatements are getting denied for no reason. These are legitimate businesses have all their documentation already passed the video verification that gets reviewed by Google and approved and yet their reinstatements are getting denied. You can submit your case to a community forum where product experts can pick up these cases. But because you go in there and it's swamped with other submissions of people having similar issues, they're often not picked up at all or if they are, it might take weeks for it to get picked up. And going back and forth with support, they're being very vague about responses or sending you to support documentation that's also feels buggy like it seems like they're changing their support documentation over to this new process. And I'll have you fill out a form with and say fill out this and then this is blank with no place to actually fill out information. So once you do kind of work through all that, you get your listing back live again, if you're lucky, then you still have the issue where you're trying to get reviews to your to your business listing, because obviously we everyone knows how important reviews are to your business profile. Often it gets that gets stuck, where it's difficult for new reviews to get stuck onto your listing. So you need to get a large quantity of reviews, they need to be legitimate. And you have to work really hard as a business owner to get customers to leave reviews to get the chance for it to even stick onto your chair listing lots of fun hurdles with new listings.

Yeah, I know what new listings, they have the frustration they know the customer said they left a review and then you don't see the review. And the last thing, right, right. That is super frustrating for businesses. Thank you Google. That one we really enjoy. Okay, so it sounds like Google. You know, we appreciate that Google is trying to find spam, because when we see the spam, that is so annoying, but then on the other end of things, you would think with their resources, they could put together a process that works. I mean, what they've had 15 years, I feel like since the like we've been dealing with the postcard like probably 20 years. Like can we have a process that works? Maybe not? I don't know. But that too much to expect, I guess. All right. So we talked about new listing, what's kind of been your experience with GBP listings when they've been suspended?

Yeah, so Julie talks about new this is like existing listings been live for a decade with their GBP listing have been no issues. Historically there's always been suspensions with GBP, and we've worked in verticals that are a little more sensitive to suspensions, a lot of times Home Services, in particular home services, I've been identified as to Google as particularly spammy, so they might be a little more sensitive to the suspensions more often. But lately, with these listings, we're seeing sometimes zero changes made to the listing, it's been in the same state for a year, nothing's changed, they'll just get randomly suspended, right with no explanation. We've seen really, really small edits trigger suspensions. And when I say really, really small, not edits to like the business name, the business address, the business phone number, or the URL or website associated with it, which would be like fairly significant components of the listing but like you change your business hours, because you're no longer open on Sunday, or even as simple as there's, there's a feature in GBP, called labels that allows you to label your listing for use in the Google Ads account and linking it together. So like it's not even customer facing information. We've seen changes like that trigger a suspension, so really, really sensitive. We've seen Google reach out to businesses saying hey, Um, Thanksgiving is coming up, did you want to state what your hours will be your business hours will be on Thanksgiving, like just click here and edit it right now. It'll be really fast, right? And being the good Google abiding citizens that a lot of the businesses we work with are they say, Yes, let me go in and do that great reminder, they make this one tiny edit that Google asked for boom suspension, right. So you don't have to necessarily be messing with anything of significance in your listing to, you know, actually end up getting suspended. And another thing we've seen lately that honestly haven't experienced much over the last, like 10 to 15 years is a user a concern with a user on your listing. So Google's, for some reason flags a user, they won't tell you why they flagged that user, actually, in some cases, don't even think they tell you they find the user, they will sometimes we've seen a case where they said, Hey, we flagged the user, they won't tell you why. But for some reason, they're suspicious of a user on the listing. And so they suspend the listings associated with that user. So your GVP listing comes down because something's wrong with that user. In most cases, people have done nothing out of the out of the norm. Maybe they've done nothing, they haven't flagged a review, or posted a review themselves, or anything that would typically trigger something like that. So it gets a little tricky to understand why that's happening, then you have to go remove the user and begin the reinstatement process. So there's getting highly sensitive for listings that have existed for a long period of time. Once that happens. And the suspension occurs, it does look relatively similar to a new listing minus the you don't have to recreate the lesson, right. So you're in suspension, you submit for reinstatement. And you go through the whole rigmarole of sending your documentation, sometimes they ask for the same documentation two times, you've already submitted it, and they ask for it again. And you go back and forth. It's kind of a confusing conversation, and then they'll issue a verdict of Oh, no, we're not going to reinstate you. You're stuck going to the forum, the forums clogged up with the, you know, reinstatement request GBP product experts can't get to all of them. So they're sitting there kind of stagnant. So that looks looks fairly similar once you get into that phase to a new listing. But the only thing to highlight here is like the recent suspensions, we've seen some of these businesses have been in GBP. For 15 years, they've in some cases been in the same building for those 15 years. They have permanent signage on their door above their door on the marquee. And in the front, they have 50 employees coming in and out of this, this business location every single day of every single week. They're on the Secretary of State's site, their licensed, they have 10 different utility bills they can supply as evidence they've been on the BBB for a decade with a great rating. And it's like, there's so much evidence that this business is legit and should be reinstated. And in some cases, we're still getting having a really hard time getting listings reinstated as of late. And that's, that's kind of in the frustrating part about all this. And then, as Julie said, and we'll talk about in a couple minutes, like we're moving into an era that I think is going to become even more difficult in this realm, which is frustrating and concerning, of course, as we move forward so.

That's super tough. Now, when you say users get flagged in the reason that suspension, like if you think of our history of our agency, we've had times where we might have multiple people accessing holistic from the same IP address, because we're in the same office. Now we're working remotely, we might have two people accessing that listing from two different states. Is that playing a role? Do you think in some of these listings being suspended, or is it just like Google randomness? And it's hard to tell?

I mean, I don't I don't know. And this is an area that I don't think Google shed a lot of light on. I mean, we've been working remotely for a couple of years, and I've had no issues literally non for several years, and then all of a sudden, so did they change something? Did it become more sensitive? Are particular things considered suspicious that they need to clarify for people? You know, a lot of the people, a lot of business owners we work with, don't spend a lot of time on the internet, even in their login. And so if their login is one, that's fine, it's unusual, because they're not doing much without login being honest. Some of them are like, they don't even want to be a user, because they're like that, don't trust? No, trust me with that kind of, you know, responsibility. So I think it is hard to know, I know if you're like international, like you're not normally international or international. I've heard that can be an issue. But I mean, we've been working in all different states without a problem for three years. It's been a kind of an uptick in what's in the behavior there as far as Google flagging or being suspended.

So Google, it feels casual in the manner in which Google could just make a decision to suspend the listing. What what does that what impact might that have on a business and for how long Google just casually suspending their listing?

Yeah, it goes way beyond just the obvious that you know, you're missing the call volume, the awesome call volume that you get from your Maps listing. And also, the visits to your websites that you would normally get from your maps isn't because the Maps listing is no longer visible to potential customers. Beyond that the Maps listing is connected your GBP profile's connected. In addition to just the Maps listing, it's connected to your local service ads in the home service business. So we were fairly confident we know for sure that part of the ranking factors for LSA is number of reviews and your reputation associated with your maps listing that's connected to your LSA profile. So if you are go down, that's get disconnected from your LSA listing. So now you're at a serious disadvantage amongst your competition in in a very prominent paid advertising source. So that's a big disadvantage when when you get suspended. Additionally, in regular Google PPC ads, you can there's a location extension that often can show your business location with a typical PPC Google ad. If you get suspended that location asset is no longer available to you. So that's another disadvantage amongst your competition. And for potential customers. Obviously, it hurts your branding efforts, because it's it's the map section is such a visible section of the SERPs. So now there's other ways obviously, people can find you and doing branded searches. But a big chunk of that is gone. You can, it's more difficult to collect feedback from current customers, because you no longer have a place for people to leave reviews on an ongoing basis. And years and years and years of reviews that you have collected over time are gone. So It's way bigger than just, hey, my business is suspended in one small spot, it really impacts most of marketing.

And if you guys didn't make an effort to bring these back, they're just gone forever. If you're just a small business owner just trying to manage your business like it, they're not, they're not going to bring it back for you. Right. It's not like, oh, we just took it down for a little while we're putting it back up.

No, it requires serious effort to get it back up. So yeah, it's not something like a small business owner, if they're on their own doing all their marketing. That's problematic for them.

Yeah it's a heavy lift for them.

Yeah. And the lift's gotten heavier. Because you know, like we talked about, like years ago, if you got suspended, you might go for reinstatement. One application one form, okay, you're good to go. You're live, it was 24 hours later. And even though that was a frustrating, 24 hours, everything was good. And after 24 hours, and we're just really moving far away from that space, and so many instances of like, oh, just submit the reinstatement. Wait a day, and everything's good. And that's what's making it I think, especially hard. What

are we seeing lately in terms of time? I know, it varies in each case. But what are some of the recent examples of time it's taken to get reinstated

weeks, to months, and some of the cases that they've been Google's push back, particularly. And there was a stat posted in near media. And Mike Blumenthal, I think was the one that had posted it about 50% of the like forum requests. And this was done in August. So a little while ago, were suspension posts, like I'm suspended, I need help kind of things, right. So these are sitting people are getting panicked, they're trying to reach out for help in the forum that GBP forum was has traditionally been a good place to reach out for help if you truly get stuck, just getting so inundated with so many examples, it's like it people can't get to them to respond to them. And if they do respond to them, even GBP product experts are getting pushed back on their escalations of things, and instances that they didn't use to right? So it's just even when you get to a higher level of support, if you're lucky enough for someone to pick it up. You're getting you're getting stuck because of how many and I guess in because Google is getting stricter with all of this.

And I mean, there has been it's been riddled with spam, right? So I we are definitely understanding that Google needs to take action and try to do something to crack down on the spam that makes all the sense in the world. It's just implications for small business owners that are legitimate is it's devastating to these businesses. So it's understandably frustrating.

Yeah, and I think we're still seeing spam exist in fairly large volume and so are these owners that are getting suspended. So they have you know, steam coming out of their ears because they are legitimately operating business, you know, day in and day out, getting suspended and being given a hard time but these spam listings are getting away with things and they're not all getting scooped up and taken down themselves. So it makes it an extra frustrating situation to watch. The bad guys kind of get away with it. The good guys getting locked up here so.

It is frustrating. I know. And I know that Europe is going through a new kind of newly introduced reinstatement process for this for GBP, and the rumor mill has it this is coming to the US soon, right? This is this is gonna be our future. So what do we know about this so far? And how you guys feeling about this?

Feeling super excited. I'm really excited about this. Actually, I don't know that anyone is feeling excited about this. Actually, as Julie and I were talking about this podcast earlier earlier this week, and just get getting ready to do it. Things changed again this week, as far as what's known about this process and what it looks like currently in the EU, EU and what people are experiencing. So we know for sure we have no idea exactly what it'll look like in the US. But we're going to try and base it off of what's happening in the EU because that's what we have as far as information. EU rules and regulations are stricter. So there certainly could be some differences because policies are just different between like the countries involved. But I think at a high level, they are aiming to give people fewer chances to submit for reinstatements or make arguments for reinstatements. The most recent thing said, they'll decide if you're eligible for reinstatement or not, which implies you may not even be given a single chance to request reinstatement. That's new. So I don't know. And I don't know how common that is either. That maybe is reserved for cases where it's like unless a new gone 20 warnings in the past historically. So now you don't get any more. And maybe it is for extreme cases don't know a lot about that. But they want to cut back the number of reinstatement, the ability to re request reinstatement multiple times. So they're saying like one time you can submit for reinstatement. So like, make the most of it. Do it right the first time.

That's like pressure packed right there feels like heavy pressure.

Yeah, and I think and I think it feels even more like more pressure because Google often responds to our reinstatement request currently confused? Send me the utility bill, we already sent the utility bill, no problem, we can send the utility bill again, right. So if you go through this, and you do everything perfect, but on there, and they're in any way confused, for whatever reason. And then they just say you're done like, that feels scary, because it almost feels like I could do everything perfect. And this could still not go well. I think that's what scares me the most is like you can learn the process inside and out, we are still relying on the other side doing their part. And they're not going to share what their concern is at the end in much detail at all. They may say overall, you violated a policy. Well, that's very, very vague, right. So it's very hard to know where they got tripped up, or if you if you truly didn't supply something correctly. So I think that's that is that is truly what scares me the most is just like you could be perfect, and still it doesn't work out. But in addition to only giving you one chance, or there may be a chance that they allow you to post in the forum and have a GVD product expert pick it up and re escalate it a second time, that still remains a question even for that product expert team, they're not 100% sure that they're gonna be able to pick it up. And, and it's going to matter if they asked Google to do anything with it. But that doors potentially seems still open. They're putting time limits on how long you have to submit the information. So you're told you've been suspended, you can submit a reinstatement, once you jump into that process, you now have 60 minutes, one hour to get everything submitted through that form. Otherwise, you basically like lose your chance to apply for reinstatement. So I mean, 60 minutes is a long time. But if you get in there and you say, oh shoot, there's four documents on I only have two of them, it's going to feel really short trying to gather two more documents that they're asking for, you know, in this request in that 60 minutes. So coming in 100% prepared with what you need is going to be extremely, extremely important. In fact, you should have what you know you're going to need for a suspension before you ever get suspended and just hope you never need to use it right. That's going to include things like a license if it's required, and not all states require licenses for every vertical but some do. You would have to have that. Your business registration information, right tax documents, they don't stay a lot more about what that means. It says tax documents. I feel like that is fairly vague. But you'll need tax documents, utility bills, and there's a bunch of different utility bills that are acceptable. That utility bill will be included. BBB jewel, was that on the list or was that one that we have prepared because we know that the look at it I actually am now drawing a blank on if it was specifically listed.

It is not specifically listed on the forum we just know from experience.

Yeah. And then with all the proof that you do provide the business's name and the business address are supposed to match exactly what's in your GBP listing. I think this gets tricky because sometimes like, we know our experience with different states is that the license has like the entity name, but not the DBA. And then so and then the DBA is what's listed in the GDP listing that doing business as name because that's how they're known to like the public. And now there's a discrepancy between the two documents. I'm not sure how Google's going to handle that, I think logically that should they should be able to make the jump if you have proof of your DBA or fictitious trade name, and you have your license that has, you know, the entity name, and you have your GBP that has that DBA on it, can they can they tie these two things together? Logically, it seems like yes, but right now, there's no statement made to clarify, like, if your state truly won't put your DBA to match your GBP on your license, how do you get a license that has the information that Google is asking for? So there's definitely some concern there on how much is Google going to delve into, like what the real world is doing, and making their systems align. And we've seen with other systems in the past and other products that they offer, sometimes it takes them a little while to like get to a place where it's their policies align with what local governments will provide in some of these documents that they're requiring. So definitely some concerns there, although I think they're gonna have to work it out, you just don't want to be one of the businesses that they have to like, work it out on right or figure it out, through or for, and that, that makes this process a bit scary. Scary, too. So other things with this process, they're gonna give a tiny bit more transparency as to why you are suspended, I'm going to be honest, I saw the examples of what more transparency is supposed to look like, tiny bit more transparency, very, very minimal. It's like another big statement, like you violated a policy or, you know, something like that, it's, it's not much more, you might know if it was a user, that was a problem versus a policy with how you created your listing or something. But in a lot of cases, these are still vague statements. So don't expect a lot from that. But you can expect like, a little bit a little bit more. And you can submit documentation in a zip file. If you have multiple forms of documentation that that's they're saying, supposedly a Google Drive like folder or something like that wouldn't be acceptable would have to be a zip, I think that could change or there. There may be variables to that as we move forward. And they will communicate via email, once you submit your reinstatement if you've been reinstated or denied, supposedly to again, remains to be seen, but they should communicate an ultimate verdict with you in the end, but as I kind of said, really, at the beginning of this, I think the biggest scariest thing here is like one chance at reinstatement, no back and forth emails, you know, asking for clarification from them, or them asking for clarification for you. It's like from you, like submit, you have 60 minutes, get it in, they're gonna review that. And that's what they're going to look at. And then it's going to be done. And I think we're all hoping and praying that things like the forum will still be a place that you could potentially get another lifeline. Yeah it feels like one chance feels really scary. And right now, I feel like in the reinstatement process, the GBP products are kind of the failsafe, like, what do you think what what role do you think they'll have in like this new process?

Yeah, it it puts a lot of it feels like it puts a lot of pressure on product experts. They're not paid by Google to help. You know, this is a community forum. They became product experts by helping others voluntarily. And it's putting a lot of pressure on them. Because if I could, we've mentioned a couple of times already, if you go into the GBP Community Forum right now, it is just riddled with, with people, business owners saying I got suspended, please help. And so I think it's going to be difficult to get these answered in timely fashion. How do you even get your list your post to be seen in the first place? And it's yeah, it puts a lot of pressure on product experts to try to sort out Google's new system more or less, for free. And beyond just the product experts, like we've already talked about it just is so discouraging that it's becoming so so so difficult for legitimate businesses to pass all these hurdles. Yet spam is still still rampant clearly. I mean, the newest trick we've seen the past month or so is there's business small businesses or their GBP listings are getting hijacked. Say it's a monastery in Greece. A home service business will hijack that listing because it has a lot of reviews associated with it, and attach it to their local service ads or, or utilize it to be able to, you know, rank. And it seems like it should be easy spam to detect and filter out. And you know, but that's running rampant currently. You know, owners are there they're afraid to touch, everyone's afraid to touch listings right now with the chance that it's going to get suspended. So you're not able to fully optimize and maximize all the features that are available, and that you're often encouraged by Google to, to do. Again, it'll be I think it's gonna be even more challenging for product experts to pick up on a lot of these on a lot of these cases.

It's, it's, it's tough. So it feels like we're kind of in this waiting period for the new process to kind of roll out in the United States. What can businesses do during this time to sort of prepare?

The first thing is like the documentation that we know is likely to be required based on the EU and what they already asked for reinstatements. Because let's be honest, a lot of the stuff they're already asking for if you need to get reinstated, currently, right? Get that documentation together. It's been our experience that it sounds it sounds simple, like, Oh, I just need these documents that I have for my business, and then you go to track them down. And they're hard to find, or you need to request a copy be sent to you. And some places put it online, but not all places put it online. And so and then you realize, oh, has the wrong address. I didn't update that properly, or you know what up any number of things. So like, now's the time to work through that. Go track down your documentation, make sure it's populated accurately with correct information. I know that DBA and entity thing is still tricky. So as much as you can get ready and prepared, get it, make sure you do have utility bills, and you know where to find them. A lot of times using a recent utility bills, best practice. So you don't want to use one from like 2019 and 20. Submit it in 2023. So make sure you have like recent versions of of that your your tax documentation again, what specific document are they looking for? There's there's a bunch, my guess would be something related to your EIN, your your your business tax ID number is probably part of that they've used that and other products on Google's use that and like their paid search product recently. Did you like entity verification there. So just trying to get your ducks in a row from that perspective, right now, while you have time and you're not in panic mode would definitely be like, I think one of the first things as well as BBB. So they're not saying they're specifically asking for it, we have experienced them asking for it. In the past, they had places where they've asked you to paste that link in the past and reinstatements, they do seem to rely on the BBB as a source of information. However, they're using that behind the scenes. So you're not listed in the BBB. And you want to just try and get everything as clean as you can. It is it is does require a payment to be listed on the BBB with an accreditation. But it might be worth it because you're a GBP listing, being suspended for any period of time can put a huge dent in revenue. So getting your BBB listing setup if you don't have it already. Permanent signage, we talked about this before, if you don't have permanent signage on your building, I think most real businesses do eventually get to that point if it's not a one of them opening their doors, but like taking a piece of paper printer paper, putting your name on it and taping it on the door and saying yes, I have signage is not going to cut it. You want that permanent signage on the front of your building, whether it's on your door or above your door, I know if you're renting space, or sometimes rules about where you can put things and that's okay, put it in someplace that's permanent. If there is a marquee, if there's another sign all the way out by the street, like put in all the places that you can put it to show that you're there, you're there permanently your brand like all of that, make it make sure it matches your GBP don't put a different name like those things if you don't have them, start working on them ASAP. We haven't talked to that much about citations or like mentions of your business, other places outside of Google but getting your citations done ahead of time two primary sources like a data axle, or localeze among many others, but places where you didn't get your business listing correctly and accurately with an up to date address and all that information. Sometimes they have you that you move to a year ago and they still have your old address or something like that. So getting that stuff aligned. Google's gonna look a lot of places to see how they feel about the legitimacy of your business. So as many places as you can be listed accurately and properly to support who you are and where you are and all those things. That's stuff you can On now and get sorted out now. So it's just their evidence for Google when they go to when they go to look. Don't play games with your listing, I would say, Now, I would never recommend playing games with your Google, your Google Business Listing, I would never be my recommendation historically, but like, now is certainly not the time to play games with it. Let's create a fake listing, or let's put fake information or anything you're trying to do. That's not real or legit, I would recommend never doing but definitely don't do it right, now it's gonna get harder to get those listing reinstated. You want everything to be in there properly and accurately and as up to date as you possibly can have it so don't mess around. I would consider connecting with a GBP product expert at this point in time and just whether it's having a conversation with them about how to proceed or working with them on a regular basis, that they may be the only lifeline that is available when this process rolls out. If you do get suspended, and they do deny your reinstatement request, or maybe they tell me tell you, you don't even get an option for a reinstatement period. Right. They may be the only lifeline you have available to even have a chance of getting Google to hear you. It sounds like it was basically taking away traditional support or I wanted to take them while not making them as customer facing like you're not going to be able to contact them right. So truly be your only lifeline. So as we're in this stage of uncertainty and how Google is going to move forward, it's probably not a bad idea to like, try and connect with one and try to stay as up to date and up to speed with everything that that's going on that they know either ahead of time or as it rolls out. Because you said this before you agree to when you do your reinstatement request, do it perfect, or as close to perfect as you possibly can the first time because that might be your only the only chance you get so all of these things as far as preparing is really just trying to get close to being perfect. Should you ever need to ask for reinstatement when this process rolls out. Until I don't know, if you feel like I missed anything jump in.

The only other thing I was thinking is if you know on your profile, you link to your website, if your address is listed on your website, obviously make sure that's up to date. And I mean, Google My Business maps GBP. It's free. It's a free program from Google. And so it's it's not incredibly shocking that they're continuing to do things to minimize, like, the support that's available, because I just can't like substantiate, like the amount of the volume of requests or questions that probably come up from their support team. So I'm not shocked that it's going this way. But it is unfortunate because they at the same time are allowing spam to flourish while making it stricter. So.

And if you're a business that's not regularly tracking your calls, you might be surprised just how many are coming from your GBP listing, right? So so that sounds like really good advice. Get your documents in order, know the rules, be proactive about being organized and following them and being prepared if you are suspended to to not lengthen the procedure by having to gather documentation habit beforehand makes all the sense in the world. All right. This has been really informative. Let's do last thoughts, Julie, any last thoughts? Be prepared and good luck everybody.

Don't let, don't let frustration or fear like stop you from preparing. And sometimes you get so stuck. And like this is Google's, this is the worst, I can't believe they're doing this to me, they're ruining my life. And nothing's happened, like try and just focus on what you can control. And this, if the process rolls out, and it's not perfect, it will get better over time, I am convinced of that, whether it's better or getting rid of spam, in addition to regular businesses, like in some way it will improve gradually over time. So try and focus on what you can control and not on what you can't and all that aside, because that's all we really can do right now is focus on things we can control.

So one other note too, if you're going to be posting to the community forum to try to get help from a product expert or something like that, like these are people are volunteering their time to help you and they need the information. They need the correct and proper information to be able to assist you. So give some thought into how you're completing those forum posts so that they have the information when they go to help you available to them and be patient and kind because, you know just really being reactionary and saying Google messed up like you know, it's not going to get the problem fixed. So

Yeah, it's not the place to vent we all we know it's what we know it's frustrating as well as anybody right but that's not the place to vent. That's, that's good advice till Yeah. All right. Well, joy, Ashley, thank you. There's been a lot of good and information if you found this information helpful, please subscribe like do all the things that you know the your podcast thing that you watch podcasts or listen to podcasts on allow you to do. Thanks everybody I hope you enjoyed it.