Google's Lisa Landsman interviewed Google's Google Business Profiles Verification Product Manager, Sheerna. They discussed a lot of the concerns many local SEOs and small businesses are dealing with around GBPs and also the challenges they have with managing the service.
Lisa wrote on LinkedIn, "We recognize that verification on Google Business Profile can be a pain point, and Google is committed to making it smoother."
Here is what they covered:
- Verification Support
- How Google is making it easy for good merchants to verify and hard for bad merchants to verify
- Principles of what they look for with verification: (1) Business exist in exact location and matches title/category provided, (2) You are a genuine user and (3) You are authorized to represent the business
- Why is it complex and challenging
- Improvements made with video verification (i.e. video previews and more)
- Improving issues with suspensions impacting good merchants
- Ambitions and goals for 2025
- Advice for businesses to pass business verifications
Here is the full video:
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.