Don't Fall For This Scam To Takeover Your Google Business Profile

Several of my clients have emailed me about it. This is a screenshot of an email that I just got this morning from a client.

What's happening is random people are requesting ownership of your Google Business Profile. So, if you're a business owner or you lead an organization, you're a church leader or a nonprofit leader. Anyone with a Google Maps listing or a Google Business Profile where your reviews are, where your photos are on Google, where the directions are. Your Google hub is your Google Business Profile.

It's extremely valuable, which is why people are pulling these scams and trying to get them. So, what they do is they go to your profile, and anyone can click the little 'Request' button because Google even asks, Is this your business? So, you click on there, and then they can put in their information and request ownership.

What you need to do is click the respond button, because this is a legit email from Google. It's just not a legit request. So what these people are doing, they're sending the request and if you don't respond, then a lot of times, part of Google's policy is, and what they'll do is they'll give you five days to respond and after five days if you haven't responded, many times, they'll just hand the profile over to whoever requested it because they're assuming you must not care.

Must not be important. This must be legit, and so they want this to happen. So, what you need to do is click the Respond button in the email, go in there, deny the ownership, deny the request, and shut it down. Google will say, why are you doing this? What's the problem?

You can just write in there, it's a, you know, illegitimate request or spam. But whatever you do, don't ignore these because if you do, there's a likelihood that someone else ends up owning your Google Business Profile, and if that ever happens, it is a nightmare to deal with Google and get some of this back.

So don't ignore those emails, respond, deny the request and hang tight, hold tight to your Google Business Profile. Because it is hugely important and extremely valuable to your business. Otherwise, these guys wouldn't be pulling this stuff.