Service areas = honey-pot for suspensions?

they don't do anything other than get you in trouble

April 29, 2025

Hi,

Here’s your Monday dose of local SEO 👇️

1. Can you have a GBP if your business is in a co-working space? 🤔

Yes, but only if you:

  • have a dedicated office with permanent signage at the location

  • have a unique phone number directly answered by your staff and not by the co-working building’s answering service

  • have staff in place at the location during stated business hours

I still don’t love it, though, because co-working spaces put your Profile under extra scrutiny and could be more prone to triggering suspensions and verifications.

If you’re going to get a dedicated space with signage at a co-working space, you might as well get a real office somewhere else and not put that target on your back.

See this post on Instagram.

2. Your GBP probably didn’t get suspended for the reason you think it did.

Most people assume it was the last edit they made, but that’s often not the case.

In many situations, the suspension happens because there was already something wrong with the Profile before any recent changes.

For example:

  1. You edit a GBP and update something simple like the service descriptions.

  2. Google’s automated checks run to review the Profile.

  3. There is a guidelines violation on some other field.

  4. The Profile gets suspended.

So, you think it was the service description edits that caused it, but really, they just triggered a review that found an existing guidelines issue - usually to do with showing/hiding your address, or the service areas.

That said, it’s still smart not to make too many changes at once. Spacing out your edits can help avoid unnecessary flags or suspensions.

3. Are service areas just a honey-pot for GBP suspensions?

Think about it:

  1. They don't do anything for rankings

  2. All they do is draw that red outline on the map

  3. They are one of the most common causes of suspensions

So, why does Google even offer this section to businesses when they are so useless?

Perhaps because they are a useful tool for identifying spammers? If you add every town in a 500-mile radius to your Google Business Profile, that gives Google a pretty good signal that you could be spammy.

My advice: Don't bother adding more than one service area. Just enter the city your Profile is verified at and that's it. Service areas don't help with rankings and can flag your listing for suspensions.

Lots of thoughts in the comments on LinkedIn — check them out!

4. POV: You are one suspension away from a meltdown

Don’t forget to follow me on LinkedIn, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok so you don’t miss my local SEO posts!

Darren