Ouch! Google suspended you? Me too!

bysonto

113 followers

10 months ago

I couldn't believe it when I got an email from Google with this message "Your Business Profile has been suspended". The email continued to say that my business profile was flagged for suspicious activity. This can be very scary and intimidating for a person like me who is fairly a beginner when it comes to the internet.

This is what happened; I was only trying to put the address of my business on my website (google my business) when I was asked to put a video/picture. I was not ready to do this because I wanted to take a professional picture/video. The next time I tried to fill out the form I wasn't asked to confirm with a picture or video. I was now asked to confirm my phone number. Although I found it strange that I was no longer asked for the picture/video I just continued and entered my telephone number. The next message said to wait for a while because my application was being processed.

Later that afternoon I got a message that my profile was now suspended. While Google said suspended when I typed the word "suspended" on Youtube a lot of videos that were coming up were titled "banned". I think my mind somehow raced and substituted the word suspended with the word banned. I was so stressed because I didn't understand what this meant. Did it mean that all my work was lost? What exactly does it mean?

This is very stressful for a person who is not that clued up with the internet operations I repeat.

So I quickly logged into the website and saw that the website was still up and running but with the message on the location space with this message;

Google Maps Platform rejected your request. The provided API key is invalid.

Now this is very confusing and very frustrating because Google does not even give you any reason why your request is being rejected. Even the video that Google sends doesn't say much. It is as general as they come. You have to do your own homework and figure things out for yourself. I decided to track back my steps and see where I committed the crime. The problem could be that I should have still looked for the space where I should have inserted the video or pictures of the store. After searching on Youtube and going through a few tutorials on how to fix the error.

This is what I did. I typed support.google.com/business/troubleshooter/2690129 and made sure to carefully answer the questions asked. Though I panicked when Google sent me another email with another form to fill in. If they are happy with my form I'm told that my account will be reinstated. If not I will have to find out for MYself again what other reasons can cause Google to reject your application.

I will not panic or give up, I will keep on working on the error until I am reinstated. I hope this will help many other people who might face a similar problem.