Google sent out mass policy violation notices to some Local Service Ads advertisers. The notice is being sent via email and the subject line reads, "Your account has policy violations that need to be resolved." Google is giving these advertisers until June 12th to resolve the issue.
It is unclear if this notice was a bug or some sort of new enforcement Google took action on now.
Jason Brown posted a screenshot of the violation notice in the Local Search Forum:
I am told that most, if not all, of these notices went out yesterday afternoon and were sent to garage door companies.
When you click through, you are presented with this notice in the Local Service Ads console:
That image was provided by Crystal Horton who posted it on Twitter. Crystal said, "LSA is now spelling it out for you when an LSA account gets suspended! There's also a tab in the LSA dashboard for policy violations." Crystal added, "An email notification was sent to multiple Garage Door companies across the US within the last 90 minutes stating "Your account has policy violations that need to be resolved". But when we click the blue button, it goes to a page with no violations. Could this be a possible glitch?"
Not yet, just AdWords, It may be a bug, we are asking the team.
— Ben Fisher (@TheSocialDude) May 31, 2023
This is great, now if only we can find out if the mass suspension of Garage Door companies was intentional. This is a big deal @rustybrick
— Ben Fisher (@TheSocialDude) May 31, 2023
I wonder if this was just a bug?
Google is looking into it:
Hi Crystal, I’m looking into this.
— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) May 31, 2023
I don’t have an update but the team is looking into it.
— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) May 31, 2023
Forum discussion at Local Search Forum and Twitter.
Update: Jason Brown posted this update in the forums, suggesting this was new enforcement and not really a bug:
This is what I heard from my client.
1. This was a planned rollout to target spam and abuse in LSA.
2. Google was supposed to link to the policy violation, and they didn't.
3. This only impacts Garage Door Repair and no other categories.
4. This is location specific, as not all LSA profiles received it.
5. This is not an Adwords policy violation; the notice will appear in your PPC account.
Update 2: Google has officially responded, basically saying the emails are legit but they had a bit of a technical snag. Ginny Marvin from Google wrote, "If you’re managing Local Services accounts via an MCC, the link in the email isn't redirecting properly. We're working on a fix, but in the meantime, to see the policy manager you'll need to select the right account & go to the policy manager page." Here is her response:
Separately, we’ve found that some Local Services accounts that have gone through Advanced Verification may see a policy flag which has no impact on your ads & you can disregard the notice. We’re looking into a solution here too. 2/2
— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) June 1, 2023
