Google + Bans Unauthorized Business Profiles

You might remember that recently Google asked businesses to apply for Google + business profile testing. This meant that the selected businesses will be allowed to create business profiles (similar to Facebook pages) and provide feedback on the features. They’ve requested that all other businesses wait for this feature to become publicly available in the next couple of months and not to create business profiles using regular profiles on Google + . Well, Google is remaining strict on this policy by removing all unauthorized business profiles including those created by IBNLive.com, Mashable and Ford. The suspended profiles now lead to an Error 404 (page not found) page.

Here’s what Google’s Christian Oestlien said on July 6:

“We have a great team of engineers actively building an amazing Google+ experience for businesses, and we will have something to show the world later this year.

The business experience we are creating should far exceed the consumer profile in terms of its usefulness to businesses. We just ask for your patience while we build it. In the meantime, we are discouraging businesses from using regular profiles to connect with Google+ users. Our policy team will actively work with profile owners to shut down non-user profiles.

Over the next few months we are going to be running a small experiment with a few marketing partners to see the effect of including brands in the Google+ experience. We’ll begin this pilot with a small number of named partners”.

He then wrote on July 13:

“To the thousands upon thousands of businesses that applied to be a part: THANK YOU! We won’t be able to accommodate everyone, but your interest has got us very focused on accelerating our development plans”.

Check out the video below for more details.

Do you think Google was right to remove the profiles?