Your GBP got suspended? Here's exactly how to fix it, from common triggers to the appeal language that gets profiles restored faster.
Before you touch anything else on your Google Business Profile, there's one thing you need to check. If your listing is suspended, or you've searched your own business name and found your Google Maps listing missing entirely, every action you take in the wrong order can delay your reinstatement by weeks, or get your account permanently removed.
I've worked through GBP suspension recovery with dozens of US businesses over the past nine years. A restaurant owner in Denver lost his listing for six weeks because he submitted an appeal before fixing the actual violation. A law firm in Charlotte, NC had their profile suspended twice in three months, because they fixed the wrong thing the first time. Some industries see this far more often than others, locksmiths, plumbers, and cannabis dispensaries are among the highest-risk categories, and I've included what's different about fixing a suspended listing in each of those trades further down this guide.
Google suspended more than 200,000 Google Business Profiles in 2025 for policy violations, many of them belonging to legitimate businesses that had no idea they'd done anything wrong.
This guide walks you through the exact recovery process, in order, so you don't make the mistakes that turn a 2-week fix into a 3-month ordeal.
Try Flento free → to monitor your GBP health continuously so you catch issues before Google does.
This connects well with Google Maps pin moving scam.
GBP suspensions are increasing because Google's automated review systems have become more aggressive, and less forgiving of gray areas. Understanding the cause is the only way to fix it.
Google suspends listings for two primary reasons: soft suspensions (your listing is hidden but not removed) and hard suspensions (your listing is removed entirely). The cause determines the fix.
The most common violation triggers Flento data has identified across 2,000+ US business profiles include:
Business name violations, Adding keywords, service descriptors, or city names to your business name field. "Smith Plumbing – Fast Service Denver" instead of "Smith Plumbing" is a violation.
Address issues, Using a virtual office, UPS Store, or mailbox address as a primary location. This violates Google's requirement for a real, staffed business location.
Fake or incentivized reviews, Offering discounts in exchange for reviews, or using review gating software to filter negative feedback before it reaches Google.
Multiple listings for the same location, Duplicate profiles for the same business address, often created accidentally when businesses move or change ownership.
Category misuse, Selecting categories that don't match your primary business function in an attempt to appear in more search results.
Sudden profile changes, Editing several core fields (name, address, category, phone) at once triggers Google's fraud detection algorithms.
💡 Pro Tip: Google doesn't always tell you which policy you violated. This is why diagnosing your listing before appealing is non-negotiable.
Action Step: Before moving to Step 1, log in to your Google Business Profile manager at business.google.com and note whether you see a "Suspended" badge or a full removal message. The distinction matters.
Not all GBP suspensions are the same. Identifying yours takes less than five minutes and determines which path you follow.
There are three suspension states you may be in:
Soft Suspension (Most Common) Your profile is live but removed from Maps and search results. You can still log in and edit it. You'll see a yellow or red banner in your dashboard. This is typically triggered by a policy violation Google detected in your listing, and is the easiest to recover from.
Hard Suspension Your listing is gone entirely. Searching for your business name on Google Maps returns no result, and you may not be able to access the profile at all. This is more serious and typically involves repeat violations or account-level issues.
Pending Verification Suspension Your listing is held pending address verification. This often happens after an address change or when Google's systems flag your location as potentially ineligible. You'll see a "Get verified" prompt.
⚠️ Common Mistake: Businesses with a soft suspension often keep editing their listing while it's flagged, trying to "fix" things before knowing the cause. This resets Google's internal review timers and can delay reinstatement.
Action Step: Log in to your GBP dashboard, identify your suspension type from the list above, and write it down. Then move to Step 2, do not touch your listing yet.
Submitting a reinstatement request before fixing your violation is the #1 mistake I see US businesses make. Google reviewers can tell when nothing has changed, and denials stick.
Use what I call the Flento GBP Compliance Audit, a systematic pass through your listing's five highest-risk fields before you file any appeal.
Check 1, Business Name Does your name match your storefront signage and legal registration exactly? No keywords. No location modifiers. No service descriptors. "Austin Family Dentistry" is fine. "Austin Family Dentistry – Emergency Dental Care | Central TX" is a violation.
Check 2, Address Is your address a real, staffed location during business hours? Virtual offices, co-working spaces that don't host your business, and PO boxes all violate Google's guidelines for service-area businesses and storefronts. If you're a service-area business (like a plumber or electrician), you should hide your address entirely.
Check 3, Primary Category Does your primary category match what your business primarily does? A general contractor who selected "Home Builder" when they primarily do remodeling work may be flagged. Check Google's official category list and select the most precise match.
Check 4, Phone Number Is your phone number a local number (not toll-free)? Does it connect directly to your listed location? Call forwarding is acceptable, but the number must reach your business.
Check 5, Reviews Scan your recent reviews for any that may have been flagged. If you used any third-party review tool that filtered customers before they reached Google, remove those tools immediately. Review gating is a hard violation.
📊 Flento Data: Businesses that fix their name field violation before appealing are reinstated at 2.4x the rate of businesses that appeal without making changes first.
Action Step: Work through all five checks. Make only the corrections that address real violations. Document every change you make, you'll need this for your appeal letter.
A reinstatement request is only as strong as the evidence you include. A vague appeal gets denied. A documented, specific appeal gets reviewed, and usually approved.
Where to Submit: Go to Google's official Business Profile reinstatement form.
⚠️ Critical: The 60-Minute Evidence Window Once you open the Google appeals form and reach the document upload step, you have exactly 60 minutes to submit your supporting documents before the session expires. Do not open the form until you have all your evidence files ready to upload. A rushed or incomplete submission is treated the same as no evidence at all.
What to Include in Your Appeal:
Business name and suspended GBP URL, Copy the exact URL from your dashboard.
Statement of what was wrong, One or two clear sentences. "Our business name included the service descriptor 'Fast Service Denver,' which we have corrected to match our legal business name."
Proof of legitimacy, Attach documentation. The more, the better:
Confirmation that you've read Google's guidelines, Mention the specific policy section you reviewed. This signals to the reviewer that you're not going to reoffend.
What NOT to Include:
Emotional appeals ("We've been in business 20 years and this is very unfair"), accusations about competitors reporting your listing, or requests to expedite.
🔥 Quick Win: If you're a restaurant in a state with a food handler's permit requirement, attach your health department permit. It's the single strongest verification document Google accepts for food businesses.
Action Step: Prepare all documents before opening the form. You have 60 minutes once the session starts. Submit your appeal once, then wait. Multiple submissions for the same issue create a backlog and slow your review time.
Reinstatement reviews currently take 3–10 business days for soft suspensions and 14–30 days for hard suspensions. Your business doesn't have to go dark while you wait.
Keep Customer Acquisition Running
Your website is still live. Push traffic from your social channels directly to your website's contact page. If you don't have a local phone number prominently displayed, fix that now.
Bing Places for Business, If you haven't claimed your Bing listing, do it today. Bing Maps powers a significant share of US searches, and it won't be affected by your GBP suspension.
Apple Maps, Claim or update your Apple Maps Connect listing. iPhone users searching locally won't see your suspended GBP, but they'll see Apple Maps.
Yelp, Make sure your Yelp page is claimed and accurate. Many US consumers go to Yelp first for restaurants, home services, and healthcare providers.
Build Your Evidence File
While you wait, collect any additional business documentation that can support your appeal if it's denied. Think: bank statements showing your business address, customer contracts, insurance certificates, anything that proves your physical business location.
💡 Pro Tip: An HVAC company in San Antonio, TX that I worked with kept 90 days of Google Business Profile post history as evidence during their appeal. Google reviewers noted it in the reinstatement confirmation. Active listings get reinstated faster than dormant ones.
Action Step: Claim or update your Bing Places and Apple Maps listings today. Set a calendar reminder for Day 14, if you haven't heard back on your appeal by then, move to Step 5.
A denial isn't final. It's a signal that your appeal didn't include enough evidence, or that the violation wasn't fully corrected.
1. Re-audit your listing. Go back to Step 2 and run the Flento GBP Compliance Audit again. Check fields you may have overlooked the first time, especially secondary categories, business hours formatting, and your website URL (it should link to your business's actual domain, not a landing page or aggregator).
2. Gather stronger documentation. A denial often means the reviewer wasn't convinced the business is legitimate. Add to your evidence file: a signed lease agreement, an official business license from your state's Secretary of State website, or a letter from your local Chamber of Commerce.
3. Request a Google Business Profile Expert review. Google offers a live support option for suspended profiles. Go to support.google.com/business, select "Contact us," then choose "Suspend or reinstatement issues." You'll be able to request a callback or chat session with a Google specialist. This path takes longer but gives you a human reviewer instead of automated processing.
4. Post in the Google Business Profile Community Forum. If two weeks have passed with no response or you've hit a dead end with support, post your case in the Google Business Profile Community. Google Product Experts monitor this forum daily and can escalate stuck cases that automated systems have missed. Include your case ID and a brief description of the issue, do not include personal business information publicly.
5. Check for account-level issues. If your Google account itself has violations, not just the individual listing, reinstatement becomes significantly harder. Look for any warnings in your Google account settings and resolve those separately.
⚠️ Common Mistake: Creating a new GBP listing while your original is under suspension or appeal is a hard violation. Google's systems will detect duplicate addresses and may permanently remove both listings.
Action Step: If your appeal was denied, wait 30 days before resubmitting with stronger documentation. Do not create a new listing in the meantime. If it's been 14+ days with no response, use the Community Forum path before resubmitting.
Some trades trigger Google's suspension systems more often than others, not because the businesses are doing anything wrong, but because their category has a documented spam or compliance problem that makes Google's reviewers more aggressive.
Locksmiths Locksmith listings are suspended more than almost any other trade because the category has been flooded for years by lead-generation companies creating fake local listings, so Google's automated systems now treat new and edited locksmith profiles with extra suspicion. If you're a legitimate local locksmith, the fastest reinstatement path is heavy documentation: a state or city locksmith license (required in states like California, Texas, and New Jersey), a real storefront or dispatch address, and photos of your service vehicles with visible signage. Do not use a residential address if you're a mobile-only locksmith, mark your profile as a service-area business instead.
Plumbers Plumbers are usually suspended for one of two reasons: a residential address showing on a listing that should be a hidden service-area business, or a business name that includes city or service keywords ("Fast Plumber Austin 24/7" instead of the registered business name). Before appealing, confirm your address visibility setting is correct in GBP and that your business name matches your state contractor license exactly.
Cannabis Dispensaries Dispensary listings face the strictest category rules of any business type on Google, since cannabis remains federally restricted even where state-legal. Suspensions here are frequently tied to prohibited attributes, delivery claims Google doesn't allow for this category, or a category mismatch (some dispensaries mistakenly select a general retail category instead of the cannabis-specific one). Your reinstatement evidence should include your state cannabis license number and confirmation that your listing complies with Google's cannabis business policy, which restricts delivery and online ordering claims in some states even when legally permitted locally.
⚠️ Common Mistake: Businesses in these three categories often resubmit the same appeal repeatedly without addressing the category-specific issue above. A generic appeal letter that doesn't speak to the locksmith spam problem, the plumber address issue, or the dispensary compliance policy gets denied at a noticeably higher rate than one that does.
Once you're reinstated, or if you're trying to make sure this never happens, the highest-leverage move is continuous monitoring.
Flento's Google Business Profile Optimizer scans your listing for policy compliance issues before Google flags them. It checks your business name format, category alignment, address consistency, and review health on an ongoing basis, so you know about a problem before it becomes a suspension.
Flento's Business Listing Management Software also maintains NAP consistency across 50+ US directories, which eliminates one of the most common secondary triggers for GBP suspensions: conflicting business information across the web.
Try Flento free →, monitor your GBP health automatically and catch compliance issues before they cost you your listing.
✅ Done? Keep your reinstated listing healthy automatically → Try Flento free
How do I fix a suspended Google Maps listing? Identify whether it's a soft suspension, hard suspension, or pending verification, then find and correct the specific policy violation before submitting any appeal. Fixing the underlying issue first, not just appealing, is what determines whether a Google Maps listing gets reinstated.
How do locksmiths, plumbers, and dispensaries fix a suspended GBP differently from other businesses? Each faces a category-specific trigger: locksmiths are suspended due to widespread lead-generation spam in that category, plumbers most often from an incorrectly visible residential address, and dispensaries from cannabis-specific policy restrictions on delivery and online ordering claims. Appeals for these trades should speak directly to the category issue and include licensing documentation.
How long does a Google Business Profile suspension take to resolve in the US? Soft suspension appeals typically take 3–10 business days. Hard suspension reviews take 14–30 days. Using Google's live support option (chat or callback) can sometimes accelerate this, but average wait times vary by season and case complexity. If you haven't heard back in 14 days, post in the GBP Community Forum where Product Experts can escalate.
What's the difference between a soft suspension and a hard suspension? A soft suspension hides your listing from Maps and search results but leaves it accessible in your dashboard. A hard suspension removes the listing entirely. Hard suspensions are harder to reverse and typically indicate a more serious policy violation or repeat offense.
Does a GBP suspension affect my website's organic search rankings? No, a Google Business Profile suspension affects your Maps and Local Pack visibility, not your website's organic search rankings. Your website will still appear in regular Google search results. However, for searches with local intent (like "plumber near me"), the Local Pack drives the majority of clicks, so the business impact can still be severe even if organic rankings hold.
Can I still get calls and reviews during a GBP suspension? No. A suspended listing is invisible on Google Maps and Search. Customers cannot find you, call from your listing, or leave new reviews while the suspension is active. Existing reviews remain on your profile and are restored upon reinstatement.
Can I still respond to reviews or post content while my GBP is suspended? You can access your GBP dashboard during a soft suspension and technically edit the listing, but doing so while Google's review is pending can reset the review timer. For a hard suspension, access is typically fully restricted. The safest approach: make only the corrections needed to fix the violation, document them, then submit your appeal without further edits.
What documents does Google accept as proof during a reinstatement appeal? Business licenses, state registration certificates, utility bills showing your business address, lease agreements, health department permits, professional licenses, and storefront photos with visible signage and street address are all accepted. Include multiple document types for strongest results. Have all files ready before opening the appeal form, you have 60 minutes from the time you open the document upload step.
Will my reviews still be there after my GBP is reinstated? In most cases, yes, your reviews are preserved during a soft suspension and returned upon reinstatement. Hard suspensions carry a higher risk of review loss, though Google's official position is that reinstated profiles retain their review history.
Can a competitor report my Google Business Profile and get it suspended? Yes. Google allows users to flag listings for policy violations. However, a competitor's report alone doesn't suspend a listing, Google's systems review flagged profiles and make their own determination. If your listing was suspended, there is a policy issue present, regardless of who reported it.
How do US service-area businesses (SABs) handle GBP suspensions differently? Service-area businesses should have their physical address hidden in their GBP settings. Displaying a residential address, virtual office, or ineligible location is a common suspension trigger for SABs. During your compliance audit, confirm your address is hidden and your service area is correctly defined.
Every week your listing stays suspended, you're invisible to customers searching for exactly what you offer in your area. The good news: for most US businesses, the path from suspended to reinstated is clear, fix the violation first, document everything, and submit once with strong evidence.
Don't appeal before fixing the violation. Don't create a new listing while your appeal is active. Document every change. And once you're back, put a monitoring system in place so you're never caught off guard again.
Try Flento free →, Flento's Google Business Profile Optimizer monitors your listing for compliance issues automatically, so you stay visible on Maps and out of Google's suspension queue.
