If you manage a Google Business Profile for your company, you’ve probably noticed that you occasionally get messages from Google users asking for things like product information or customer service. While some of these messages may be legitimate, others may be spam. Although there’s no way to stop spam completely, you can take a few steps to reduce the number of spam messages you receive. This article explores how you can reduce spam from Google Business Profile messages.

1) Don’t Post Your Email Address on Your Profile

By not posting your email address on your profile, you can reduce the spam you receive and improve the quality of customer reviews.

Here’s how it works: when you list your email address on your profile, Google makes it easy for spammers to find and send messages to you.  If your email address isn’t easily identifiable, you make it more difficult for spammers to find and target you. 

You can also take measures to protect your email address, such as using a P.O. box or a contact form on your website instead of your email address.

While not posting your email address on your profile may not wholly eliminate spam messages, it can help to reduce the amount of spam you receive. This, in turn, can help you to reach more potential customers and promote your business more effectively.

2) Report Spam Messages

When you report a spam message, it helps Google to improve its algorithms and filters, which can help reduce the number of spam messages you and other business owners receive.

Reporting spam messages can also help improve your customer reviews. This is because when you report a spam message, you are also given the option to leave a review. Leaving a review can help other potential customers see that you are an active and engaged business owner interested in providing a good customer experience.

3) Check the “Show Only Verified Businesses” Setting

To check this setting, head on to your Google Business Profile settings and click the “Show Only Verified Businesses” option. Anyone can send you messages, including businesses that Google hasn’t verified if it’s not checked.

 When you enable the setting, you’ll only see messages from businesses that Google has verified. This means they’ve been through a verification process and have been found legitimate businesses.

4) Use a Separate Email Address for Your Google Business Profile

With this method, if you get any spam messages, they will be in a different inbox and will not clutter up your primary inbox. To set up a different email address, follow the following steps:

  1. While logged on to your Google Business Profile, click on the “Settings” tab.
  2. Under the “Contact Information” section, click on the “Edit” button.
  3. In the “Email Address” field, enter the unused email address you wish to use for your profile.
  4. Click on the “Save” button.

Your Google Business Profile will now use the new email address you specified; any messages sent to your profile will go to that inbox. You can check this inbox periodically to see if you have any messages from customers or prospects.

5) Turn On Message Filtering

When message filtering is on, Google filters out messages that it thinks are spam automatically. Once you’ve created a filter, you can decide what happens to messages that are caught by the filter. You can have them deleted, or sent to a separate email address. You can also choose to have them marked as spam.

Here’s how to do it:

  • Click on the settings icon in the top right corner.
  • Select “Settings” from the drop-down menu.
  • Scroll down to the “Message Filtering” section.
  • Check the box next to “Turn on message filtering.”
  • Select the types of messages you want to filter out. You can filter out all messages from businesses, people you don’t know, or messages with attachments.
  • Click “Save.”

That’s it. All messages that meet your selected criteria will be automatically filtered into a separate folder. You can check that folder periodically to see if there are any messages you want to read, or you can just ignore it and know that you’re not missing anything important.

Start Your Journey Today

As a business owner, you know how important it is to have a solid online presence through a Google Business Profile. Over 51% of people depend on search engines to find a good contractor. However, with a lot of spam messages from other businesses and potential customers, it can be frustrating. 

Reducing spam from Google Business Profile messages is important for any business from roofing marketing to SaaS platforms. Improve the user-generated dialogue with customer reviews and other tips above to build a strong, lasting online presence and reputation. Ensure you customize your Google Business Profile to reflect your brand and products, and you can use a review management system to track and respond to customer reviews across the web.