On the 29th of July 2022, our business profile was removed from the google listings for breaking the guidelines.
When our business transferred from New South Wales to Tasmania, some details and loose ends were not tied up which caused and eventual domino affect on our business. One year after transferring to Tasmania and fully closing shop in New South Wales, our business profile still had not showed up in Tasmania. To counteract this, we listed our personal address on our google profile. This allowed our profile to begin being found in Tasmania such that we could pick up new work.
3 years later, through tying up loose ends, messaging websites that have misleading information regarding our business, our business was reported for not having an actual ‘walk in address’. Realising where the problem had started, we rectified the issue and asked for a reinstatement.
Long story short, google responded two weeks later with “still breaks the guidelines”. They then unsuspended our business for three hours, duplicated our business profile, and then suspended both profiles. 8 weeks later, multiple emails, reinstatement request, calls for help, we couldn’t get in contact with google. A long 8 weeks of going from a top 3 business in Tasmania having over 4000 monthly hits, to near 0 monthly hits.
Eventually a community member reached out to help, and the process finally made its way into the hands of a google representative who had answers.
It turns out our business was still ‘technically’ listed in NSW as our ABN had not been updated to suit new state. Also, the duplicated business counted as a violation against googles rules (which I’d not even created).
10 weeks it took to have our business return to the light of google.
A big takeaway from this was realising building an online presence on google and relying on that for new work isn’t viable when you have family. I spent the two months upgrading the business, so I could come back bigger, better and faster. Many lessons were learnt, but when times get difficult, the fruits are floral and growth is imminent.