Be careful about this GBP scam

Happy Monday, everyone!

Some tips for ya 👇️

1. Will changing your Google Business Profile primary category trigger reverification?

I get asked this all the time, especially whenever I talk about updating categories seasonally.

Yes, a primary category change can sometimes trigger reverification, but not always.

Here's what I think is going on:

1. When you change the primary category, Google takes a closer look at your entire profile. If something else looks off or needs verification, that’s what triggers it, not the category change itself.

2. Google will usually crawl your website again after a category change. If you don't have any content on your site that matches the new category, that’s a red flag.

3. If you make a drastic category change to something completely unrelated, like going from a plumber to a restaurant, that’s much more likely to trigger reverification.

If your category change actually makes sense for your business and your website supports it, you’re usually fine. We do this for our clients all the time at Whitespark, and it doesn't trigger reverification.

Tim Kahlert added a very smart 4th point in my LinkedIn comments - check it out here.

2. Google scam alert 🚨

One of our clients almost got scammed and had their Google Business Profile hijacked. Listen to this 👇️

@darrenshawseo

🚨 Google scam alert! One of our clients almost got scammed and had their Google Business Profile hijacked. Here’s what happened: One of o... See more

No TikTok? Watch on Instagram

3. What do you need to do to show up in Google’s AI Mode?

Definitely not just what you used to do to get into the Local Pack.

Traditional local SEO is a lot of work, but it’s pretty straightforward: optimize your GBP and website, build citations, get reviews, and boom - you’re ranking.

AI local SEO, on the other hand, is a lot of work and it’s not straightforward at all:

• AI will give you a different answer to the same local query every time

• It doesn’t only refer to the sources you have control over (like your GBP and website), but to what the entire internet says about you

• It uses a much more complicated system of finding answers to questions than traditional search (query fan-out)

• and the list goes on

While the shift to AI search is frustrating for many local SEOs, it also opens up new opportunities for businesses that never ranked #1 on Maps to gain more local visibility.

In her new guide, Miriam Ellis shares a step-by-step checklist for Google AI Mode prominence. Read the guide and download your copy of the checklist here 👇️

4. Catch up on the pod

Do we have a new local search “ranking” factor?

Up until now, one of the best ways to rage bait me has been to say that optimizing your Google Business Profile description will help your local rankings.

Google doesn’t use the description in the local search algorithm, but Ask Maps changes things.

Prompts on Ask Maps aren’t usually as simple as “dentists in Miami”. They are more likely to contain specific details like “dentists in Miami that are less than a mile away from me and specialize in broken teeth”.

Research by Rich Sanger shows that Ask Maps will look at everything on your GBP, including your business description. So, the more informational your description, the bigger your chance to get surfaced in Ask Maps results for such detailed queries.

Claire and I talked about this in last week’s podcast episode, as well as:

• ‘Restaurants’ and ‘coffee and dessert’ now have local service ads (Eric Levine)

• Schema Markup for Internal Knowledge Graphs to Support Topic Entity Strategy in AI Search (Aimee Jurenka)

• Google Maps Blocked 292 Million Reviews & Removed 13 Million Fake Profiles (Barry Schwartz)

• The ghost citation problem (Kevin Indig)

• Commodity and Non-Commodity Content (Mark Williams-Cook)

• Most SEOs Are Preparing for Yesterday's Internet (Ross Simmonds)

Watch the episode here 👇️

🎧 Or if you prefer listening, find it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Darren

P.S. Whitespark can help you ⬇️

😍 Visualize your local search performance on the most beautiful ranking grids

🚨 Get notified when Google updates your GBP and reject unwanted changes

🚀 Increase your local rankings and conversions

📈 Track rankings across different zip/post-codes

⭐️ Get more reviews

🧹 Clean up and build citations

🔍 Find citation opportunities

✍️ Learn local SEO for free

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