What is triggering Google account suspensions?
-
Over the past 24 hours many of our clients have had their Google accounts suspended. The explanation has been:
"After reviewing your profile, we determined that it has been used to impersonate another individual or mislead other users. This violates the Google+ User Content and Conduct Policy."
We are NOT impersonating our clients, we have their permission. We are not misleading anyone, simply setting up profiles for our clients on Google+.
This has not affected all of our clients, but a significant number of them. We cannot find a common variable between the clients that have been suspended, and those who have not.
- Some have had other Google+ profiles in the past, in another account, some have not.
- Some have been previously verified via SMS, others by phone.
- Some have posts in their profile, others have only the profile info filled out.
Again, we are not trying to game Google, we are simply setting up authorship for them, with their permission.
I have not seen much in the SEO community about this today, and this is NOT related to fake reviews. We do not partake in that kind of activity.
We have written a post on the topic, and no matter how this shakes out, I think our take is solid. Authorship is changing the game, content is changing the game, trust is changing the game… and Google is getting serious about it.
We have also seen this happen to our clients, to our competitors' clients, and to other marketing firms' clients, outside of our vertical.
Does anyone know more about the topic, especially in regards to the suspensions over the past 24 hours?
-
Another point. It doesn't have to be the business owner who does the verification and uses his own IP address. It can be the receptionist or anyone else. All I need is for the business owner to tell the employee to expect my call and follow my instructions. On one occasion, the employee even called me from home because she had no web access at work.
-
I am completely with Daniel here - IP's can trigger this. I know you say you don't think this is IP related, but there are many other instances of this happening. Why Google might favour some over others is anyones guess, but this is where I would place my bets.
-
Thanks for your feedback Daniel. We've tried this before, but with our volume + limited access to the actual business owners, its very difficult. Again, I don't believe this is a IP issue. The same thing happened to competing company's clients in our vertical that are smaller than ours (including some individual consultants that wouldn't trip an IP filter), within the same 48 hour period.
-
FWIW, I try to have my clients set up their own Google+ accounts, then share the login and password with me.
This is generally done during one of my update calls or web meetings, with me talking them through the process
-
Boy the thought has crossed my mind that the number for verification might get tagged. Going to have to start creating Skype accounts or something?
-
Thanks for your response. I know they can track IPs, but this appears to be something different. It hit our clients, and our competitors clients, on the same day.
I am thinking they targeted our vertical for some reason.
Also, many but not all accounts were affected.
Smells like there's more to this story than just "IP volume tracking", since we deal with that and similar volume issues often (like using the same ph# repeatedly for verification).
-
Hi, Even though you are setting up accounts for your clients, creating too many from the same IP would trigger the suspension. This is nothing new. I remember hearing about this last year. Mash
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How Google could quickly fix the whole Links problem...
A Thursday morning brainstorm that hopefully an important Google manager will see... Google could quickly end all the problems of link buying, spammy links, and negative SEO with one easy step: Only count the 100 best follow links to any domain. Ignore all the nofollows and everything beyond the 100 best. They can choose what "best" means. Suddenly links would be all about quality. Quantity would not matter. Fiverr links, comment links, and all the other mass-produced spam links would literally be ignored. Unless that's all a domain had, and then they would surely be stomped by any domain with 100 decent natural links. Would it be an improvement over today's situation?
Industry News | | GregB1230 -
Can a Google Local listing be merged with a Goolge+ page?
I have a google+ company page set up and have recently added a Google local listing but have noticed it automatically sets up an additional company G+ page. Is there a way to merge the two? Can not see any reference to this issue on Google Q&A. Thanks, Stacey
Industry News | | skehoe0 -
XML Sitemap Leads to loss in ranking and traffic in Google.
I have submitted XML sitemap in Google's webmaster tools for some of the categories of my website. after submitting the sitemap i have seen the drop in traffic and ranking of keywords for the categories tof which sitemap was submitted. The other categories for which i have not submitted the sitemap the ranks have not changed. my sites alexa rank is approx 3000 Please help me out should i remove the site or change the priority of the urls which i have fixed in the sitemap?
Industry News | | seosogo0 -
Google update on Jan 17 2013 ?
Hi guys, Today ( Jan 17 2013 ) I am observing a lot of changes within google serp for a variety of keyword. im feeling like if there was a google update somehow. There seems to be few thread around the web that claim such an update ( or a panda refresh ) , were you affected ? Did somebady else noticed a huge SERP fluctuation within their primary keyword ? Thanks in advance for your answer 😄 Best regards, Yan
Industry News | | ydesjardins2001 -
Does Google still have a standard search result? How can I get it?
I have heard a lot from the experts that there are no "Standard" Google search results anymore. They said that most of the SERP's of Google that show up are customized/tailored for each individuals even if they are not logged-in using their Google Custom Search. My questions are, Is there still a way to retrieve the standard Google search result? How? Are these scripts will be helpful when searching on Google? *webhp?
Industry News | | RafaelRanada
*complete=0
*pws=0 watch?v=B8ofWFx525s B8ofWFx525s watch?v=B8ofWFx525s0 -
How to report rankings after the Google Venice update?
As a profesional agency we focus on traffic and conversions, but rankings are still a good KPI to please customers. Unfortunately rankings are not reliable anymore sinds the Google Venice update. My question is; "How can you still report about rankings, but without the risk that your customer sees total different results?" Software we use At the moment we use Rank Tracker from Link Assistant.
Industry News | | VanSoelen0 -
Why Does OSE (Open Site Explorer) have such little backlink data on russian sites in the google.ru index?
OK this seems v strange, but google.ru are indexing far more BLs in their SERPS for a widget than OSE reports. Very little data is found in OSE for russian based sites. Is this the marketing intention? (I could send raw data if needed!) What is filtering this vast google.ru data list out? Is OSE only catered for US/UK?
Industry News | | Turkey0 -
Google to Target Overly SEOd Sites
I just watched the video from Barry Schwartz talking about the new Update to come with the Google Algo. Video of his Friday Post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJqSPT2NXdA I have also started reading on Webmasterworld on this topic: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4429947.htm What do you think Google has in the list of changes?
Industry News | | Ben-HPB0