Search Scope research and data
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Main article: Search Scope (SEO consultancy)
Search Scope publishes first-party research on Google Business Profile suspensions and on which businesses AI systems recommend.[1][2] Neither body of research is independent of the consultancy: the suspension figures come from its own casework, and AI SEO Perth, which published the AI study, states that it is not editorially independent of Search Scope.[3]
Google Business Profile suspension dataset
Data table
| Item | Value (cases) |
|---|---|
| Business information | 86 |
| Too many or too fast edits | 69 |
| Address and service area | 57 |
| Duplicate listings | 36 |
| Account trust (Gmail) | 31 |
| Reverification | 15 |
| Fake reviews or spam | 6 |
official The dataset is the complete set of 300 suspension cases from Australian businesses that Search Scope accepted from 1 February 2025 to 31 July 2026, with nothing sampled or excluded.[1] Search Scope reports that 295 of the profiles were reinstated, meaning they returned to public visibility on Google Search and Maps, and that five were not.[1]
Dorian Menard assigned each case one primary trigger from its audit file.[1] Business information and guideline compliance (86 cases) and too many or too fast profile edits (69 cases) account for 155 of the 300.[1] Reinstatement rates were 96.8% or higher in the six largest trigger categories; in the smallest, fake reviews and spam signals, one case in six was not reinstated.[1]
The article also reports that 112 of the cases were Greater Perth businesses, where 41 suspensions were triggered by profile edits: 36.6%, against 14.9% for the rest of Australia.[1] It sets out how the cases were counted, including the denominator for every percentage, and replaces an earlier edition that covered the first 234 cases.[1]
Perth AI Search Study 2026
Data table
| Item | Value (%) |
|---|---|
| Google AI Overviews | 77.6 |
| Gemini | 72.1 |
| ChatGPT | 64.7 |
| Google AI Mode | 60.1 |
AI SEO Perth, Search Scope’s research publication, released the Perth AI Search Study 2026 on 11 September 2026, with Menard leading the research.[2] It asked Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT and Gemini 200 commercial questions about 20 Perth industries, three times on three days between 8 and 10 September 2026, and recorded 2,400 AI answers alongside 600 Google Maps baseline captures.[2]
official The study reports that, depending on the platform, 60% to 78% of the businesses the four systems recommended were outside the top 20 Google Maps results for that question, and only 8% to 31% were recommended in all three rounds.[2] Presence in Google’s organic top 10 and a high Google review count were the characteristics most consistently associated with repeated recommendation; star rating was not.[2] The study presents these as associations observed at one point in time, not as causes.[2] The observation dataset is published with the study.[2]
Other publications
Search Scope also publishes three reference pages defining AI search, generative engine optimisation and answer engine optimisation, and a series of Australian industry statistics reports, including Google Maps statistics, search engine usage and the state of SEO and marketing in Australia.[4]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Dorian Menard. "Google Business Profile Suspension Statistics: What 300 Australian Cases Tell Us (2026)". Search Scope. 24 November 2025, updated 3 September 2026. Retrieved 14 September 2026.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Dorian Menard. "Perth AI Search Study 2026". AI SEO Perth. 11 September 2026. Retrieved 14 September 2026.
- ^ "About AI SEO Perth". AI SEO Perth. Retrieved 14 September 2026.
- ^ "Search Scope (llms.txt)". Search Scope. Retrieved 14 September 2026.