Every now and then, Facebook will throw us for a loop. And whether we like it or not, we’ll have to fix the problem as fast as we can. But sometimes we run across problems that can’t be fixed instantly–and the worst we’ve encountered is having one of our clients business pages completely disappear.
Shay Station Coffee & Wine Bar vanished one day a couple weeks ago without reason. We didn’t receive any notifications, emails, or warnings from Facebook.
At first, we thought one of our admins had deleted the page by mistake. Next, we thought our page had been reported for violation of terms and agreements–but, then again, we hadn’t received any warnings from Facebook (which will send you a notification if your page is reported).
So, after a few Google searches, this Facebook pages forum was the best place to find information. Not only had other admins lost pages overnight, but they were getting them restored!
…Except some pages didn’t restore for weeks, and in extreme cases, months.
To restore their pages, dissatisfied admins had taken to emailing Facebook Ad support. That’s because ad support may be the only department of Facebook that actually responds to individual concerns–everything else used to report a missing page are either bug reports or general support emails–and all you get back is a lonely confirmation email.
So if your page has disappeared, don’t fret. It only took us 36 hours to get our page restored–and whether it was simply by luck, or the 15-20 emails we sent, we’ll probably never know.
at least Facebook Insights noticed!
First off, make sure the page in question is actually missing. Page admins have the option to make a page only viewable by other admins–and pages can become unpublished this way; we’ve seen it happen.
Next, if you business/fan page really is gone, try and figure out if you violated any copyrighted material or Facebook TOS. If you have, you’ll usually receive some kind of email or warning notification from Facebook–and if that’s the case, then tough luck.
Lastly, consider the possibility of a malicious act in which your page was the victim – a rogue admin/disgruntled employee, hacked account, or a Facebook account left logged in and unattended.
Even if your page was eliminated on purpose, there is hope in getting it back – so don’t give up!