Tim 00:00
Welcome back to our podcast. My name is Tim Coleman. I'm here with Justin and Natalie, and today we're going to talk about a very important topic, and that is what has been going on recently with Google Business Profiles and LSA. So Natalie, I'm going to I'm going to start with you, and I'm just going to say, like, what has Google been doing with GBPs and LSA and what are they trying to achieve?

Natalie 01:11
Yep, so basically, in like, end of 2024 Google announced that they are phasing out LSA review links from the Local Service Ads platform, they are making it a requirement for any LSA account to have an associated and linked GBP listing to continue to run the ads and show the reviews. And in the past, LSA listings had to be you had the option to either get a LSA verified review, but that is going to be phased out too, and the reason we think they're doing this is to help and mitigate the spam that we saw active in the LSA platform for reviews.

Tim 01:53
Okay, so spam, I feel like it's something we've been dealing with forever in LSA and I guess Google feels like if these two products are combined, they have a better chance of combating it is that what we think is going on here,

Natalie 02:08
They be combating it in one platform versus two platforms. Um, that's what I'm thinking they're going to focus our resources on.

Justin 02:17
Yeah. And one of the things that we've seen so they rolled out, LSA, right? And this is many years ago now, but they put this ability to review, but there was no checks and balances on it in the LSA platform. So they gave the ability to put to leave reviews. There was no way to dispute a review. There was no way to combat someone creating fake reviews, right? So it got exposed. People, these spammers, figured out ways to, you know, expose that. And what, what we're theorizing is they kind of just decided "Listen, rather than trying to fight this from the LSA side, GBP already has measures in place." It's not to say that you can't spam GBP either, but there's ways to report reviews. They have processes in place. So by relying on only GBP for those reviews, they can kind of eliminate some of the issues that they've been running into. So that's our speculation. That's what we've seen, you know, they haven't specifically come out and said that, as far as I know, but you know, that's that's kind of our, our theory on it.

Natalie 03:31
And just as a reminder, GBP reviews integrated and were pushed into the LSA platform, but any LSA verified reviews were not pushed into the GBP platform. So it was a one way street kind of thing.

Tim 03:44
And when we were, when we were deep diving into where this Spam was in LSA, it was the LSA Google verified reviews, as I recall the business would actually just book jobs and not run them, just review, just give themselves reviews, and then they can resell jobs that were booked. So they had a bit Google and created a business model for them that worked across nearly the entire country. So this makes sense to me from that perspective. Now, normally, when Google takes on a challenge like this, it usually goes really smooth and there's no problems. So I expect that's the case here as well. Like you just went smooth, as smooth as silk, I imagine, no problems.

Natalie 04:32
Oh yeah, no problems with any Google rollout, right? There's always a tons of ton of bugs and issues that affect the rollout, and from what we know, we're still going through the rollout now, so we don't really see the positive impact that this rollout has has had.

Justin 04:55
What was the date? What was the date that they said that they were rolling it out? Just so everybody kind of know.

Natalie 05:00
Yep. So it initially started, they were saying November 2024, but we didn't start to see it impact some home service clients until February 5, 2025.

Justin 05:14
And so what, let's talk a little bit about, like how it was supposed to work, and then we can get into the bugs. So in theory, what was like supposed to happen? What? What what did? How did you connect the GBP and the LSA? How did they, kind of, like, see that? How did, how was that supposed to happen? Let's just talk about that, and then we can talk about, okay, we're now three weeks by this date, and like, what have we run into? What were the bugs? You know that type of stuff.

Natalie 05:41
Yeah so what was supposed to happen? Or in LSA, there's a business verification dashboard, and in that dashboard, they have now added business profile on there as an option. So it'll say whether it's verified or if it's not verified or linked to an existing GBP, it'll say verify. When you click on Verify, there's a button there that takes you to another platform to try to link it to an existing GBP however, because we didn't we know all our customers already had active GBP listings, we didn't understand what was going to connect the two together. Initially, they said it had to be matching business name, matching addresses and same mutual users between GBP and LSA. From what we saw after we did multiple sweeps as an agency, it was very inconsistent information across the board, like what worked best was adding a mutual GBP user onto LSA and that automatically would link them together. But we did see a lot of mismatch names that were automatically linked, and we did see some mismatch addresses that were automatically linked.

Tim 06:53
All right, so Google provided vague instructions and then applied them inconsistently. Is what I just kind of heard Natalie.

Natalie 07:00
Correct.

Tim 07:02
Yeah, okay. Okay. And so I think the biggest problem, like I in the agency right now, the thing that's I hear that's creating the most turmoil, is Google is suspending a lot of listings. Is that, right?

Natalie 07:18
The biggest bug that we've seen so far yeah is when listings come down in GBP. And we have no confirmation from Google that it's because of the rollout, but we suspect it's correlated.

Tim 07:30
It's just like a coincidence, right?

Justin 07:33
So sorry to back up like just one second. So in theory, if everything went as smoothly as possible, the way Google explained it on that date, which was you said February, the beginning of February, if you had not already gone in and linked up your GBP, your LSA, to that GBP listing and it showed, as Verified, you were, in theory, no longer going to be able to run any ads in LSA, it was going to automatically pause your ads until you linked it up.

Natalie 08:05
Correct, it would have pulled your ads down. However, what we did start to see after the rollout was GBPs still running. LSA is still running if they were unlinked. The LSA ran for another 24 to 48 hours unlinked from the GBP reviews. So it was showing at a lower rating and a lower review count. So it was only the LSA reviews that were showing.

Justin 08:29
Yeah, so again, inconsistent to what they were saying was supposed to happen, right? In theory, this was going to help us span spammers that only had LSA profiles and didn't have the GBP to match, weren't going to be able to, and it's just been a little bit of a mess. And what kind of was thought to was going to happen versus what happened, yeah, so then, okay, we can go, let's go back into, you know, some of the, some of the bugs that that were happening there.

Natalie 09:01
So during the rollout week, I would say, like a week after the first bug we noticed was that reviews were gone. They were just missing. Like the review counts went down. The total review count went down. So as we read more about the issue, it was actually a mainstream Google GBP issue that brought down and affected all platforms. It wasn't just home services. It wasn't just our clients. They confirmed it was just like a review count inaccuracy. But those reviews were not lost. They were still in their back end, and they were able to restore and bring them all back.

Tim 09:38
So how big a problem was this, Natalie? Did we lose one or two reviews? Did we lose half of our reviews? Like, how big a problem was it? Do you like, do we know

Natalie 09:48
I I'm not. I was pretty inconsistent. Again, I think some people lost, like, maybe 10 reviews. Maybe some people lost more than that. Um, enough for people to notice?

Tim 09:58
Yeah, for sure. Okay. And

Justin 10:00
This was in GBP. This is GBP only specific issue, nothing to do with LSA reviews.

Tim 10:06
And at this point, has Google reinstated this, really, across the board, like they're this, they fix this,

Natalie 10:13
Yeah, I would say, like within a few days since the issue got brought up, because it was affecting everyone in GBP world. They made sure to restore those real quickly.

Tim 10:24
Well, that's good.

Justin 10:25
That sounds like it probably was a separate GBP bug, nothing to do with this. We don't know if it was somehow involved. It was at the same time, so we were, at the time speculating, is this, you know, still have something to do with this, and we're seeing other stuff, but that one minor, it was fixed. You know?

Natalie 10:46
It was a coincidence. yeah, I but the issue that we have seen, again, no confirmation from Google, but we can only assume it's all related, is that GBPs are getting suspended, and there are GBP listing that we're not touching, like, literally no changes, no core updates, no new users, nothing. And they're just coming down. And the minute that they come down, we see the two instances where the LSA is still showing unlinked from the GBP. So you see low review count, low rating, like I'm seeing 5.0 4.9 going down to 3.9 4.0 which is a significant difference.

Tim 11:29
So Natalie, that's super important. Let me, let me walk back so I can understand that. So, if your GBP gets suspended, then the review count from your LSA. All those reviews are associated with the GBP disappear, so now the biggest signal to Google to rank your LSA is gone. So you'll lose a lot of calls from LSA as well.

Natalie 11:53
Cuts your lead volume down.

Justin 11:56
That's how it's been. That's how it's always that's how it's always been too with GBP. If it gets disconnected from your if your GBP goes down, those reviews disconnect. Now it's it was supposed to again. I know, I know I said this before, maybe I'm repeating myself. The way it was understood is, when that happens, you're not connected. Like the whole listing should, should go down. So, you know, like, I don't know, it's just, it's just interesting how there's a lot, there's a lot of variables at play here, and changing variables too.

Natalie 12:31
So I did see, like, with some recent suspensions last week, the minute the GBP went down, it did change the status in the LSA dashboard to verify. And then that's like another point to check. And then when you clicked and saw on live search that the LSA was still running, the rating was down, the review count was low, meaning it disconnected, and then 24 hours later, it was completely gone.

Justin 12:54
So that's an indicator that maybe that is where it's going. Not fully rolled out yet. It's, yeah, it's super great right now.

Natalie 13:02
The goal is that it should take down the LSA altogether the minute it disconnects from GBP. That's the comms that Google sent out to all of the advertisers.

Tim 13:12
Got it all right?

Justin 13:17
Yes, sorry, I was gonna say, do we think there's no way to know for sure all these GBPs coming down. We speculate that it does have something to do with this, you know, connection between the two and LSA, right?

Natalie 13:34
We, we definitely feel confident that it has to do with this rollout, yeah.

Justin 13:39
So what are we seeing right now with all these Gbps getting suspended? Let's just talk about what's happened with that, because everything happening at once. Now there's, there's a backup in terms of getting them reinstated, right? This happened, and all of a sudden, there's a ton of GBPs coming down. What are we dealing with now because of this.

Natalie 14:01
Yep, so there is a backlog right now with Google support, there is a few steps that you need to do if your GBP does get taken down. And so for suspensions, you have to submit an appeal. And it's like multiple sometimes it could be multiple appeals, like with the first appeal you would we suggest submitting your DBA or FBN or assumed business name document, and then we also say to submit a utility bill with the full business name, full business address, and then that would be like the first appeal submission. Right now, the timelines have been taking 14 to 20 days, sometimes longer, at least, that's what we're seeing. But we expect it to get worse before it gets better.

Justin 14:46
So normally, when you would go and try and reinstate your GBP, it might take, if they're doing good, you know, a few days to respond, a week to respond. Now that's going into two weeks, and if you have to an additional appeal, you know, then you're waiting again, another so, like, now you're like, oh, wow, I'm waiting a month plus, you know, that type of thing at this point, which is frustrating. It's frustrating that, you know these bugs happen, and then, you know, you're sitting there, you lost your GBP listing. You lost your reviews from LSA. So now your review count is down and your LSA reviews are potentially affected.

Tim 15:26
Businesses get hurt, yeah.

Natalie 15:28
What we've seen, yeah, so with the long timelines, what we're seeing is GBPs go down and then LSAS follow. So I mean, they are losing two big lead sources within a week, and they're waiting like a month to get these back up.

Tim 15:45
Yeah, all right, I know we get we've given this advice before, but you know, Google always has the potential to suspend your Google Business Profile. How do you prepare beforehand in case you're going to get suspended?

Natalie 16:00
So I would just say, gather a standard list of some documentation. Again, the DBA document is always what we use, or FBN or assume name, however you use it in your state. Utility bill is what we use. It has to be a current utility bill within the last 30 days. It has to have the business name and the physical business address, also location images, so exterior images of your location, just to show Google you are a legitimate business, and some interior images, like office space, inventory, warehouse setup, that type of thing. That's usually what we collect for our clients.

Justin 16:36
So having that on the ready as soon as it gets suspended, you're able to, boom, press the button, submit, versus if you don't now you're scrambling. Now you're trying to talk to, you know, your utility company, and they don't send you a bill until, you know, another three months or three weeks from now. So now you're waiting for that. So it's like being prepared is going to make things move a lot, a lot faster.

Tim 17:01
Okay, so now you're prepared. You get suspended. Now what? What should they do?

Natalie 17:06
They'd have to open they have to go through an appeal process. So they have to go through Google support to submit the first appeal.

Tim 17:14
And you just Google, Google support, there's a link there, and you start the conversation,

Natalie 17:18
Yes. And then they should respond with a case ID number. And that case ID number is kind of like the reference number that you'll continue on for the escalation path.

Tim 17:29
Okay, so, so let's just talk a little bit more about and I feel like we we're in the middle of all of this right now, and maybe the process hasn't been fully ironed out for that reason. Right now, if you're a small business and you are presented with this request to link your GBP to your LSA, do you go ahead and do it, or do you wait for things to settle down? Do you have a choice? What do you do?

Natalie 17:59
So if you have a LSA that's already going through the onboarding and it needs to link to a GBP, should you? Is the question? You have no choice yeah.

Tim 18:09
You have no choice got it.

Natalie 18:09
You have no choice. You have to link it to a GBP in order to show for LSA. So any new onboarding accounts like we're making sure the GBP is already up and running, and if it's not that LSA won't go live.

Tim 18:22
Got it okay. And then what about in the case where the existing, and is Google sending you an email saying, go ahead and link these. And then, or you the link is in the GBP, and you're trying to just go find it and link the two. How does that process? What does that look like to somebody?

Natalie 18:39
Again, very inconsistent. So they - yes, they initially had no communication once your listing got disconnected, or your LSA came down, but we have started to see more communication come through from Google, and it'll notify you, and it'll say, like your business needs to be verified, or your Google LSAS will come down. So again, like we're always doing sweeps, we're always checking to make sure. And I think the biggest indicator is, like loss of lead volume, right? Like, the minute you start to notice that, like, the leads are down, you can tell very quickly, like, usually it's because those two got disconnected or are both taken down.

Tim 19:21
Okay? So, so really, there's not much a business owner can do right now, but be prepared with their GBP information, in case the suspension is it sounds like the only real action item that a business owner can take right now, as we all prepare to weather this storm is kind of what I'm hearing.

Natalie 19:42
At the moment. That's the only advice we have.

Justin 19:46
I think hopefully this all ends up once it all shakes out, where we feel, like Google intended, where, you know, it's, it's trying to you know, help with some of the the spam and exploitation of Local Service Ads, right? You need that GBP, it's harder to spam GBP, so hopefully that's where it ends up. We will see as this plays out. I think one other thing when you're talking about what you can do if it does play out like this again, GBP can do there's random sweeps that they do. They're always trying to catch spam on their end, and there ultimately are legitimate listings that get taken down. It will happen to you at some point. If you're in business for long enough, your GBP will come down. You didn't necessarily do anything wrong now with that connection to LSA, not only do you lose your GBP listing, if this shakes out as it intends, you lose your LSA listing, so you lose two sources of leads, right, which can be really detrimental. So considering potentially having a multi location strategy is actually kind of an insurance policy for if this happens to you right now, hopefully in the future, if that happened, you can get it up within a short period of time, right? A couple days, hopefully a week. Probably more realistic so it's not too devastating. But you know, when you run into things like this, and there are backlogs Google has and, you know, ultimately, things can happen. You know, if you have a second location where you have reviews that at least, you know, from an LSA and with an LSA listing tied to it, right? So you had two LSA listings that now at least you have a backup plan and you didn't lose, you know, double the leads, if that makes that makes sense. So it's interesting. And yeah, there's lots of, lots of gray area with this right now. So we'll see, we'll see where, where it all lands.

Tim 21:53
So I like, I like to leave just with the optimism of that if this does go where Google intended, and we see a reduction in LSA SPAM for the long term, that would be a significant, significant positive. So we'll leave on that optimistic note. Natalie, any final words.

Natalie 22:16
As this stuff continues to unfold, we'll make sure to record a new episode and give the latest updates.

Justin 22:23
Yeah, we'll see maybe a month from now, or something like that. Or a couple months from now, we'll see once a once, all the smoke clears. I think, yeah, Tim, I think Google had good intentions with this for execution and like the bumps, you kind of know that's going to happen, and that's what kind of always happens with new things with Google? So, yeah, hopefully, next time we come on talk about this two months from now, or whenever that is, we'll say, Oh, we got through all the bumps. You know, this is what happened. This was the positive. You know, people benefited because the spammers and the scammers have mostly disappeared, and you know all is good.

Natalie 23:03
And everyone's leads tripled.

Tim 23:06
So in the meanwhile, and as always, in Google, we trust until next time. Thank you for tuning into our podcast, and we'll see you soon.

Natalie 23:17
Thank you.

Justin 23:18
Thanks