Google Local Service Ads mass policy violations

Google is investigating if this is a bug or a new enforcement of some kind.

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Google has been sending policy violation notices to Local Service Ads advertisers, but it is currently unclear if these are being sent out due to new enhanced enforcement or if there was a bug that triggered these from going out.

The policy notice. The email notification reads, “Your account has policy violations that need to be resolved.” It goes on to say that “if you do not take action by 12 of June, your ads could stop running.” Here is a screenshot of the email notification sent to me by Jason Brown:

Google Local Service Ads Mass Policy Violation Notices 1685567613

When you click through t to “view policy issues” you are taken to a screen that shows you your policy violations, but when you dig deeper, you likely won’t have an issue listed. This screenshot is from Crystal Horton, who posted it on Twitter.

Google Local Service Ads Mass Policy Violation Notice 1685567732

Some say this notice was sent to mostly garage door repair listings, but I am not sure if that is 100% validated or not.

Bug or not. Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ads Liaison, is currently looking into if this is a bug or not. Last night at around 5:50 pm ET, Ginny posted on Twitter, “I don’t have an update, but the team is looking into it.”

Why we care. If you received this notice, for now, wait, check back here to see when Google gives us more clarity on the issue. At least according to the email, you have 12 days to act on this before it becomes a potential issue for your ads.

Postscript. Google confirmed the emails were indeed legit but there was a technical issue with the link in the email, here is what to do:


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.

In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.

Barry can be followed on X here and you can learn more about Barry Schwartz over here or on his personal site.

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