Google seems to have this loophole where you can essentially hijack or destroy a Google Business Profile that is also using Local Service Ads. What happens is if someone else links their Local Service Ads to that same Google Business Profile, the Local Service Ads will stop performing.

There is a complaint about this in the Google Business Profiles forum where, as Ben Fisher put it on X, “A competitor makes a new LSA for a competitor and because the link to GBP is automatic the system will essentially nuke the competitor out of existence.” “This is a brutal new tactic that competitors are doing on LSA,” Ben explained.

Here is what this business owner wrote:

Of course, I did not try this to verify but I trust Ben knows his stuff here.

Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, posted on X that she has shared it with the team. She wrote, “Thanks for flagging, I’m sharing with the team.”

We’ve also reported, not too long ago, on Local Service Ads reviews being hijacked.

Forum discussion at X.

Update: Google updated us saying this was an isolated incident. Ginny Marvin wrote: