Article Referenced: https://localu.org/hijacked-google-my-business-listings-on-the-rise/
Google Suspension Help: https://bigwestmarketing.com/2020/11/17/what-to-do-if-your-google-my-business-account-is-suspended/
Video Summary
1. There is a new scam going around where hackers are trying to Hijack your Google My Business account.
In a nutshell, evildoers try to get access to your GMB profile using the “claim this business” link.
The best thing you can do if you get an email from someone requesting access to your account is DELETE the email. DO NOT click the link.
2. Google My Business is super sensitive and finicky right now.
Do NOT make any changes to your business account Name, Address or Phone number unless you absolutely have to. It may result in suspension.
If you are our client and need a change please ask us to do it.
Video Transcript
In this video, I want to give an update on what’s going on with Google My Business. It’s basically because there have been some hijackings. People are trying to take over your Google My Business. I’m going to show you how to protect against that. Then, just updates on what’s going on with Google accounts getting suspended. Okay, let’s get started with that right now.
Okay, we found there’s been a lot of talk about hijacked Google My Business accounts. Here’s an article from Local U. Local U, we attend all their conferences, and we share information with them. They share information with us. This is like the community for SEO people or small businesses that want to stay up-to-date on cutting edge Google My Business stuff. Here’s an article from them. I’m going to share the article below this video so that you can go and read this if you want. But basically, people are, for some reason, are hijacking, they’re hacking in and trying to take control of your Google My Business account. They’re doing this by sending out phishing emails. They’ll send out an email that says, “We need to get access to your account.”
So, if you get an email from somebody, and you don’t know who it is, and they’re asking for access to your Google My Business account, absolutely do not give that to them. Okay? The only people you should give it to is if you’ve hired us to do your SEO work, then we’re going to ask for that information so we can get in there and do some optimization. So, if you hire us, and we ask you for it, then that’s fine. But if you don’t recognize who it is, I don’t care how official it sounds, if it looks like it’s coming from Google themselves, if you don’t know who it is, 100% do not let them log into your Google My Business account. Okay? That’s number one.
The second thing is, and you may have seen this if you’re an SEO client, Jordan sent out some of this information, do not edit the core info of your Google My Business account if you’re one of our clients. Let us do that for you. Core information in the Google My Business account is basically your address, your phone number, business name, okay, and then possibly your website. We have seen that, I think it’s a buggy glitch thing, where Google will change your website to the Google site, which you don’t want. You want your actual real website to show up with your Google My Business account.
So, be on the lookout to see if there have been any changes to your business name, your website address that’s associated with your Google My Business, and your phone number. But if you’re our client, please let us change that because we’ve seen people make one single change in the Google My Business account, and they get suspended. So, that being said, let’s talk about Google suspensions. If you’re going in there and making lots of changes in your Google My Business account right now, there’s a good chance you’re going to get suspended and set your SEO back. Now, I’m going to put a link below this that will give you some tips. We’ve got a PDF that our guy Jake here created that has different things you can do to get unsuspended if you have been suspended. Okay?
We’ve had some amazing luck getting our clients, our paid clients, unsuspended. There’s only been a few because most of our clients let us do the work that they pay us for, and so we’re able to help them out. I think all of the ones that we’ve seen suspensions on we’ve gotten unsuspended at this point. But for everybody else that is not our client, be extremely careful. If you’re working with an SEO company, let them make changes. Don’t make your own changes. If you absolutely have to make a change for yourself, expect that there’s a possibility you will get suspended, even if it’s just a very normal change. If you’re changing your phone number or something like that, there’s a good chance Google will suspend it. I think it’s because of COVID and Google making all these changes, these updates, to Google My Business. Hopefully, it’ll mean good things to come in the future. But right now, super sensitive, super finicky, if you’re going in there and making any changes to your Google My Business account.
Go check it out. Make sure you haven’t been hacked. Make sure you haven’t had any information changed in there. If it has, be extremely careful about what you change and make sure you’re not making multiple changes, anything like that. If you have any questions, give us a call, (406) 493-1881. Once again, my name is Joe Burnich with bigwestmarketing.com. And if you need a free consultation, if you need help with anything, we are here for you. We give free 30-minute consultations as of right now. I will talk to you soon.
