One Local SEO Got His 60 Clients Penalized In One Night

[Mike Friedman]

That has got to hurt. 

 

https://www.seroundtable.com/a-local-seo-got-60-clients-suspended-overnight-21828.html

 

 

Mar 24, 2016 • 8:08 am |  (1)by Barry Schwartz   | Filed Under Google Search Engine Optimization

 

A Google My Business Help thread has a local SEO who is furious with Google that over 60 of his clients were suspended from Google My Business (the local maps listings) overnight because he manages all these clients in a single account.

 

A Local Search Forum thread sums it up well:

 

 

A consultant had over 60 clients on one account, and they were all suspended overnight. In general, if a single business gets picked up for spam, any other businesses owned by the same Google account can get suspended as well. For those of you working in bulk with many locations on the same account, there might be other rules there, I'd be interested to hear if that's a danger for larger organizations as well. Either way, for those of you with just a lot of different clients, always make sure to keep them on their own designated account. I do that with all my clients for all other services anyway (hosting, domain registration, etc) since if/when they you two part ways it's nice not to have a bunch of annoying, time consuming work to give the client their logins.

 

It is similar to having your spam accounts in one Google Search Console account. Don't do it if you are spamming.

 

I honestly hate seeing this type of stuff where an SEO does something so dumb that all his clients suffer from it.

 

Forum discussion at Google My Business Help & Local Search Forum.

 

[Blaine]

It happened to a local SEO guy here last year.

 

He called me. I was like dam man. I don't know what to tell you. I never heard back from him and have no idea how or even if he ever made out on it.

[gnojham]

in google my business, you can add business accounts.

like i log in to google my business, using my google name/apssword obviously. go to dashboard

from settings i can "create business account"

once i create a business account, it shows up under "accounts you own or manage"

if i create a business account for each client, does that prevent the mass suspension from occurring? or would they all be in jeopardy because they are all in the dashboard of my google username?

or do i actually need each client to create their own account?

sounds like 'create business account' doesnt prevent a mass suspension, right?

[Mike Friedman]

I create a separate Gmail account for every client and ask them to grant access to that account as a manager. I'm not taking the risk of putting everything under one account. 

 

And I am sure in this case the SEO was nowhere near as innocent as they claim. They did something.

[gnojham]

I create a separate Gmail account for every client and ask them to grant access to that account as a manager. I'm not taking the risk of putting everything under one account. 

 

And I am sure in this case the SEO was nowhere near as innocent as they claim. They did something.

thanks

i couldnt find the add manager option. checked again since i now knew it had to be there somewhere. found it. nice.

[mki]

I don't trust Google. I really don't use the console on many of my sites. I use different avatars for each site and I don't want to get a bunch of sites banned because the authors for the sites don't actually exist. I doubt Google cares, but I don't want problems.

 

VPN, I always try to use the same location for each account -> Private Firefox Browsing window -> Double check IP @ whatismyip.com (typing it in...) -> Make the GWT account or login.

 

I never have multiple sites on one account.

 

Paranoid? Probably. But I don't want them going through my account and penalizing all of my sites for unnatural links because I do guest posts or something stupid.

[alexitisisimo]

I create a separate Gmail account for every client and ask them to grant access to that account as a manager. I'm not taking the risk of putting everything under one account. 

 

And I am sure in this case the SEO was nowhere near as innocent as they claim. They did something.

 

Apparently the guy was managing some of the accounts - they were also suspended. Wonder if it's better to just completely separate things? 

 

Do you guys also go through the bother of signing in with a separate IP each time? If so, what service do you use? I've never had a problem as I only have a couple of large clients and don't spam (affiliate sites I don't even use Google) but as I've gained a few recently I figure I should start building in some additional security. 

[Mike Friedman]

Apparently the guy was managing some of the accounts - they were also suspended. Wonder if it's better to just completely separate things? 

 

Do you guys also go through the bother of signing in with a separate IP each time? If so, what service do you use? I've never had a problem as I only have a couple of large clients and don't spam (affiliate sites I don't even use Google) but as I've gained a few recently I figure I should start building in some additional security. 

 

I use a separate Gmail account for each one. I don't bother with worrying about my IP address. 

[Blaine]

All of my clients have their own accounts.

 

I create them for them. Then help them with any management if they need it.

[Jill Carpenter]

I create a separate Gmail account for every client and ask them to grant access to that account as a manager. I'm not taking the risk of putting everything under one account. 

 

And I am sure in this case the SEO was nowhere near as innocent as they claim. They did something.

I make my offline clients get all their own accounts for everything. Otherwise I'm just holding them hostage. They want me to just "do" everything and I have to explain to them that if I'm dead tomorrow they are up sh*ts creek. lol

[Mike Friedman]

I make my offline clients get all their own accounts for everything. Otherwise I'm just holding them hostage. They want me to just "do" everything and I have to explain to them that if I'm dead tomorrow they are up sh*ts creek. lol

Yes exactly. All of my clients have every log in for their information.

[Gray SEO Global]

Ouch!

[Nathan Ngo]

That would hurt..