What is Bulk Verification?

Bulk verification is the process through which Google deems a business with many locations (i.e., a chain or franchise) eligible to add locations. Smaller businesses may launch listings on Google with manual verification such as a postcard, phone call, video, or text message.

You can learn more about Google's verification methods and the options that are available through Yext in the Google Verification reference documentation. For smaller accounts (fewer than ten locations), see Verify Your Google Business Profile Listing.

Getting Started

Google’s Bulk Verification guidelines can be complex, and can involve initial cleanup steps to ensure that the guidelines are met. To help streamline this process, you can use the Bulk Verification Readiness report in Yext. The Bulk Verification Readiness report will:

• Evaluate the listings in your Google Business Profile (GBP) account against Google’s data quality guidelines
• Provide a report for your account to help simplify the data cleanup process
• Display all necessary action items in one place.

This article will walk you through the steps to generate the readiness report, take any necessary steps to resolve outstanding issues, and submit your Yext listings to Google for bulk verification.

Preparing Your GBP Account

In order to be approved by Google for bulk verification, your GBP account must meet these requirements:

• Your account must be the primary owner on all locations in the account
• There must be no disabled or suspended profiles in the account
• Every profile must have a:
  • Store Code
  • Website 
  • Phone Number
• There are no true duplicate profiles
• There are no profiles without a visible address (also known as “service area businesses”)
• The full location set must be uploaded into the GBP account, and each location must be listed on the company store locator.

Building Your Bulk Verification Readiness Report in Yext

To begin your Bulk Verification Readiness report, follow these steps in your Yext account: 

1. Click on the Account Details icon () in the bottom left corner of the navigation bar and click Account Settings.
2. Click Google Bulk Verification.
3. Click Select Linked Account and select the linked account that is associated with the account you'd like to bulk verify.
   • If you don't already have an account linked, you can click + Add Linked Account and follow the steps to link the corresponding account.
     

4. Once your account is linked, click Request to generate a report. It may take a few minutes for the status to update from "Processing" to "Ready to Review". 
5. Wait for the report to generate, then click View to open the report.

   

6. Review the issues that have been flagged under the Issue and Resolution columns. More details on how to resolve any issues are in the next section.

Resolving Issues

The Issues column of the Bulk Verification Readiness report will list any problems that must be resolved with your listings before you are ready to submit for bulk verification. The Resolution column will provide details on the action you’ll need to take. This can either be "Resolve in Google" or "Resolve in Yext".

If the issue needs to be resolved in Google, you will be prompted to resolve the data issue directly in Google, as there is no corresponding entity in Yext. Clicking Resolve in Google will take you directly to the profile in Google where missing information needs to be added.

If the issue can be resolved in Yext, clicking Resolve in Yext will take you to the entity in Yext where you will need to update or add relevant information.

These are the issue types that you may see returned in your readiness report:

• Missing Website
• Missing Phone Number
• Missing Store Code
• Suspended
• Disabled
• Primary Ownership

Missing Website or Phone Number

To resolve this, you will need to add the relevant missing information to all your locations. Yext will direct you to the Edit page where these changes can be made.

Missing Store Code

To resolve this, you will need to add the Store Code on your location(s) in GBP. To do this, see Missing business codes for bulk uploads on the Google Business Profile Help Center.

Disabled or Suspended

If you have any disabled or suspended locations, take one of the following actions:

• If the profile should be live on Google: Reinstate the business profile. For steps, see Fix suspended Business Profiles on the Google Business Profile Help Center.
  
  
• If the profile should not exist: Remove the business profile. For steps, see Close or remove a Business Profile on the Google Business Profile Help Center.

Primary Ownership

To resolve this, you will need to ensure you are the Primary Owner for all locations in your GBP Account. See Transfer primary ownership of a Business Profile on the GBP Help Center for steps on how to confirm who the Primary Owner is on your locations in GBP. If you cannot gain primary ownership of a profile in your account, it should be removed from the Google account.

Reviewing Additional Data Guidelines

Besides the issues above returned in the report, you will also need to check for these additional guidelines:

Confirm there are no true duplicate profiles in your account

True duplicates are multiple listings in an account for the same business location. Yext will share a list of potential true duplicate profiles with you directly. You will need to review the list and remove any duplicate locations. If anything flagged is not a true duplicate, please reach out to your Account Manager.

Move Service Area Businesses to a different GBP account

If your business has both service area businesses and storefront businesses, the service area businesses will need to be moved to a separate Google Business Profile account.

Review naming conventions

Google’s guidelines state that your locations’ names should reflect “your business’ real-world name, as used consistently on your storefront, website, stationery, and as known to customers.”

Review your locations’ names to ensure that they meet the guidelines above. There are two important considerations for naming conventions:

• Geomodifiers should not be included in location names (e.g., “Yext New York” and “Yext London” — both of these locations should use “Yext” as the name)
• For ATMs, naming format should be Bank Name (ATM)
  

Check guidelines with Google

To help ensure that your data adheres to Google's guidelines, you can review Common issues that delay bulk verification on the Google Business Profile Help Center.

Confirming Issues are Resolved

Before submitting the bulk verification request to Yext, we recommend generating a new Bulk Verification Readiness report to ensure all issues are resolved.

To do this, navigate back to the Google Bulk Verification Overview screen in Yext, select the relevant linked account, and click Request.

Submitting the Request to Yext

Once the data quality checks above have been completed, you will send the bulk verification request to Yext. Yext will then submit it to Google on your behalf.

To submit this request, download and fill out one of the forms attached at the bottom of this article (depending on your language). Then, send it to your Yext Account Manager.

Once you have submitted the request to Yext, Google will then make a final call on eligibility for bulk verification.

What happens next

Once the initial bulk verification request is submitted to Yext, our team will review the request and make sure the GBP account is prepared for bulk verification. You can expect to hear back from Yext within three business days. The response may include feedback on the account setup and may require additional action in your account.

When the request is sent to Google, the timeline for bulk verification will vary based on your account, and on Google’s process. Generally, the entire process can take anywhere from four to more than twelve weeks.

Potential feedback from Google

Once the request is sent to Google, they will run their own checks to confirm the account is eligible for bulk verification. While Yext is not able to complete these checks proactively, we can anticipate that they may come up. Requests from Google may include:

• Photos of storefront signage for a subset of locations
  • Storefront signage must be permanent and visible
  • Examples of acceptable signage include but are not limited to:
    • Large external signs
    • Window decals
    • Building directories
    • Banners
    • Note that signage cannot be a simple paper print-out. All signage must be legitimate and permanent.
• Videos to verify a subset of locations
  • For more information, see Verify your business with a video recording in the Google Business Profile Help Center.
• Updates to naming conventions if they do not comply with Google guidelines or storefront signage
• Updates to your website settings (for example, indexability, crawlability, or global access)

If Google requests more information based on any of the checks above, they will let your account team know, and they will pass this information to you so we can work to resolve it.

After Verification

After reviewing your request and confirming that all guidelines have been met, Google will confirm that you have been bulk verified!

Once bulk verification is confirmed, It can take up to 72 hours for all locations to be verified.

Launching new locations once bulk verified

After you have initially been approved for bulk verification, you can expect any subsequent locations to take up to 72 hours to get verified. As a best practice, new locations should always be launched with complete business information, including a Phone Number and Website.

If new locations have all the relevant business information, and it has been more than 72 hours, please reach out to Yext Support.

Google Business Profile Bulk Verification Checklist Forms