Has Someone Else Been Editing Your Google Profile?
A friend of mine runs a small salon near Cropwell Bishop. A few months back, a customer rang to say she’d turned up on a Monday and the door was locked. Her Google profile said open Mondays. It always had been closed on Mondays, and she’d never changed it.
Somebody else had! Probably a well-meaning customer who thought they were being helpful, or got it wrong. And Google, being Google, had just accepted the change.
That surprises people. You’d assume your own business profile is yours, locked away behind your login. It isn’t, quite.
Anyone can suggest an edit
When someone views your profile, there’s a little “Suggest an edit” link. They can propose a new phone number, new hours, a different address, even tell Google you’ve closed down. Customers use it. Competitors can use it. Random strangers who happen to be passing through Newark and feel like tidying things up can use it.
Most suggestions are harmless or even right. But some go through automatically, and some go to you for approval. Which ones do what? Google doesn’t really say, and I think that’s the annoying part. Small changes like opening hours or a phone number can sometimes be accepted without much fuss, especially if Google thinks the person is a trusted local contributor.
What goes wrong
The usual ones are opening hours, because they change often and people guess. Then phone numbers, which get swapped for an old one a customer found somewhere. Then the business name, which occasionally gets a keyword stuffed on the end by somebody trying to game the map. And now and then, rarely, the profile gets marked “permanently closed” when it isn’t. That last one is a proper nightmare if you don’t notice.
A profile marked closed can drop out of search almost entirely. People in Bingham looking for you just see someone else.
How to check
Open your profile on your phone, preferably in a private window, and read it like a stranger. Hours, phone number, name, address, website link, categories. Ten seconds each.
Also look for notifications. If you manage your profile in Google’s app or on your phone, there’s often a message saying “customers suggested updates” or “your profile was changed”. Don’t swipe it away. Read it. Say yes or no.
And switch on email notifications for your profile, because otherwise these messages sit unread for weeks.
How to put it right
If something’s wrong, just change it back yourself. Edit profile, fix the field, save. It usually takes effect quickly, though sometimes Google reviews it first and it can take a day or two.
If your profile has been marked closed by mistake, there’s a button to say it’s open again. It can need verification, sometimes a video of your premises, so don’t leave it a month.
If you keep seeing the same wrong change reappear, check your other listings. Google pulls from all over the place, and if an old directory in Grantham still has your previous phone number, Google may keep believing it. That’s one reason I go on about having your name, address and phone number match everywhere.
Make it harder to go wrong
Keep the facts accurate and recent. If your hours change for half term, set special hours in advance, so nobody has to guess. Keep your website and Facebook page saying the same thing as your profile. When the information agrees everywhere, Google trusts it and strangers’ edits are less likely to stick.
Also, keep a note of who has access. Old web designers, an ex-employee, an agency you stopped using years ago. If they’re still listed as an owner or manager, remove them. That’s not an edit from a stranger, it’s a risk you can switch off in a couple of minutes.
Once a month
Honestly, this is a once-a-month, two-minute job. Look at your profile as a customer would, fix anything odd, clear any notifications. It beats a salon in the Vale of Belvoir finding out from a locked door.
If you’d like me to take a look at what your profile is saying about you right now, message me for a free visibility check. I’ll tell you what’s showing, what’s wrong, and what I’d fix first.
