Search Engine Land
  • SEO
    • > All SEO
    • > What Is SEO?
    • > SEO Periodic Table
    • > Google: SEO
    • > Bing SEO
    • > Google Algorithm Updates
  • PPC
    • > All PPC
    • > What is PPC?
    • > Google Ads
    • > Microsoft Ads
    • > The Periodic Tables of PPC
  • Focuses
    • > Local
    • > Commerce
    • > Shopify SEO Guide
    • > Content
    • > Email Marketing Periodic Table
    • > Social Media Marketing
    • > Analytics
    • > Search Engine Land Awards
    • > All Focuses
  • SMX
  • Webinars
  • Intelligence Reports
  • White Papers
  • About
    • > About Search Engine Land
    • > Newsletter
    • > Third Door Media
    • > Advertise

Processing...Please wait.

Search Engine Land » Google » Google Removes Mashable, Sesame Street & Other Prominent Accounts From Google Plus

Google Removes Mashable, Sesame Street & Other Prominent Accounts From Google Plus

Some of the biggest company/brand accounts on Google+ have now — finally, some might say — been removed. The Google Plus pages for Mashable, Ford and Sesame Street are all gone. Our own Search Engine Land page has also been removed. Mashable was, according to SocialStatistics.com, the No. 4 most popular account on Google+ with […]

Matt McGee on July 21, 2011 at 2:04 pm

google-plus-logo-squareSome of the biggest company/brand accounts on Google+ have now — finally, some might say — been removed.

The Google Plus pages for Mashable, Ford and Sesame Street are all gone. Our own Search Engine Land page has also been removed. Mashable was, according to SocialStatistics.com, the No. 4 most popular account on Google+ with more than 103,000 followers.

All of those accounts have been replaced by a 404 error message. (Update: see postscript at the end of this article.)

Google has been removing business/brand accounts for more than a week now, but some users were unhappy with the random nature of the process. Some accounts were zapped early on while others seemed to get special treatment, or at least were ignored, and continued to increase their following.

It’s been a rocky few weeks for companies and brands wanting to have a presence on Google+. Within a week of Plus’ launch, Google announced that business pages would be coming soon, but days later had to ask brands to stop making new accounts. Google eventually invited businesses to apply to be part of a test program and accepted applications through last Friday.

The most recent news about Google+ for businesses was this message last week from Google’s Christian Oestlien, who said that Google would be “selecting a diverse set of business partners for the test period” and notifying them this week. Here at Search Engine Land, we did get a notification that our Google Plus account has been suspended, but there’s no invitation to a test program.

Your profile is suspended

After reviewing your profile, we determined that some of the content (e.g. text, images, name) violates our Community Standards or our Names Policy. Please remember that we are currently limiting profiles to real people and will be launching a profile for businesses and other entities later this year.

If you believe that your profile has been suspended in error, or you have recently edited your profile to comply with our Community Standards or Names Policy please submit your profile for reconsideration. Your profile will be reviewed again and unblocked if it complies with our Community Standards.

We’ve reached out to Google for more information and will update this post if/when we have a reply.

Postscript:

As of 2:00 pm PT, the Mashable and Ford accounts have been restored, while Sesame Street (and Search Engine Land) is still returning a 404 message. Mashable founder Pete Cashmore has just posted that he’s been talking to Google today and that he will use the Mashable account personally, and Mashable will wait for Google to formally launch business profiles to have an official presence on Google Plus:

We chatted with the Google+ team today about their plans for branded accounts, and we’ve both agreed that while the Mashable community is very engaged on Google+ and we all have great fun joining discussions here, it would be better for Mashable to wait for branded profiles to launch officially before having a company presence on here.

We’ve still not heard back from Google on our earlier information request.

Postscript 2, From Danny Sullivan:

In the case of Mashable, it’s technically not back. Rather, founder Pete Cashmore — who already had an account with 40,000 followers on Google+, has said on that account that he’s “winding down” and instead now going to be posting from the former Mashable account that currently has 100,000 followers, as he said on that account. So it’s not really Mashable back, see? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. It’s Pete.

That’s clearly a workaround that lets Mashable maintain its heavily followed accoun. Ford is using no such workaround, so it’s unclear why it has been restored.

Postscript 3, From Danny Sullivan:

Google has now said that brand pages are going, and the test program that people applied for to have brand pages appears dead in the water. Instead, the company will allow a “tiny” number of businesses to keep their profiles. It’s also encouraging businesses to find real people willing to take over the business profiles that have already been maintained.

From Google’s Christian Oestlien post on the matter:

A few weeks ago we mentioned we would be doing a test of business profiles and asked people interested to apply. Believe it or not we actually had tens of thousands of businesses, charities, and other organizations apply to take part from all over the world. Many of you have reached out to me personally through Google+, e-mail, chat, and even other Googlers. Thank you. Your response has been humbling.

With so many qualified candidates expressing intense interest in business profiles, we’ve been thinking hard about how to handle this process. Your enthusiasm obligates us to do more to get businesses involved in Google+ in the right way, and we have to do it faster. As a result, we have refocused a few priorities and we expect to have an initial version of businesses profiles up and running for EVERYONE in the next few months. There may be a tiny handful business profiles that will remain in the meantime solely for the purpose of testing how businesses interact with consumers.

In the meantime, we ask you not to create a business profile using regular profiles on Google+. The platform at the moment is not built for the business use case, and we want to help you build long-term relationships with your customers. Doing it right is worth the wait. We will continue to disable business profiles using regular profiles. We recommend you find a real person who is willing to represent your organization on Google+ using a real profile as him-or-herself.

Frankly, the entire thing is a mess. Google Profiles allowed for non-human use long before Google+ existed. Search Engine Land, for example, had a profile with Google Buzz (and still does) before this change happened.

Those profiles all now need to be axed, because Google either didn’t think clearly about the obvious need for businesses to be on Google+ or didn’t devote the resources to make it happen? Crazy.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


New on Search Engine Land

    Google search results spam for ‘Bill Slawski obituary’ shows the dark side of SEO

    New mobile Google ad experiment puts favicon in-line with display URL

    Google launches video health tools to help publisher monetization

    SEO pioneer and expert Bill Slawski passes away

    New Yelp feature: Request a Call

About The Author

Matt McGee
Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.

Related Topics

Google

Get the daily newsletter search marketers rely on.

Processing...Please wait.

See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS

Learn actionable search marketing tactics that can help you drive more traffic, leads, and revenue.

March 8-9, 2022: Master Classes (virtual)

June 14-15, 2022: SMX Advanced (virtual)

November 15-16, 2022: SMX Next (virtual)

Learn More About Our SMX Events

Discover time-saving technologies and actionable tactics that can help you overcome crucial marketing challenges.

Start Discovering Now: Spring (virtual)

September 28-29, 2022: Fall (virtual)

Learn More About Our MarTech Events

Webinars

Take a Crawl, Walk, Run Approach to Multi-Channel ABM

Content Comes First: Transform Your Operations With DAM

Dominate Your Competition with Google Auction Insights and Search Intelligence

See More Webinars

Intelligence Reports

Enterprise SEO Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Identity Resolution Platforms

Email Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Sales Enablement Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Digital Experience Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Call Analytics Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

See More Intelligence Reports

White Papers

Reputation Management For Healthcare Organizations

Unlock the App Marketing Potential of QR Codes

Realising the power of virtual events for demand generation

The Progressive Marketer’s Ultimate Events Strategy 2022 Worksheet

CMO Guide: How to Plan Smart and Pivot Fast

See More Whitepapers

Receive daily search news and analysis.

Processing...Please wait.

Topics

  • SEO
  • PPC

Our Events

  • Search Marketing Expo - SMX
  • MarTech

About

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS
  • Youtube

© 2022 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.