I see a ton of complaining in GBP & similar subs about Google Business Profile. A small amount of it seems legit. Look, I’m no fan of massive tech monopolies, and I’m definitely not here to defend Google. But after reading through these posts, I think a lot of people are leaving out crucial context.

In my 30+ years running businesses, I’ve done my share of impulsive internet tactics that came back to bite me—skirting rules, taking shortcuts, or pushing boundaries. Most of the time I got away with it, but occasionally I paid for it.

Years ago, we hired a "map builder" SEO crew for one of my companies. They spammed local maps across our major metro area with listings where we didn't have real physical locations. We also rented a few small satellite offices just to verify addresses in key service areas. We actually serviced those areas and did great work, so to us, it felt like a gray area—not total fraud, but certainly not the pure truth either. Eventually, those cheap, poorly managed duplicate listings crumbled, or they simply stopped generating enough calls to justify the effort.

That’s my point: most games people play with GBP, fake reviews, or location spam are far worse than what we did.  
While a tiny percentage of people genuinely get screwed by Google after doing everything right, I suspect the vast majority of people whining on here are omitting something. They either did something they shouldn't have, or neglected something they should have done.

Google’s review and map ecosystem isn't perfect, but it's built to catch people gaming the system. If you try to cut corners with GBP, don't be surprised when the algorithm eventually catches up with you.

Google GBP isn't broken—most of you are just breaking the rules