Google signals stricter enforcement of GMB image guidelines

To ensure consistency with our policies for user contributed content, we rolled out additional criteria for photos and videos for merchants late last year. We will continue to update and improve these policies over time to ensure all content that appears in the Business Profile is relevant, high quality, and appropriate. While we don’t share specific details about our moderation processes, we do use a combination of automated and manual reviews, and continue to work on making photo approvals as efficient as possible.”

— Google spokesperson

In early February, many local SEOs reported Google Posts with images were being rejected. The initial speculation was that Google was more strictly enforcing its guidelines, which prohibit stock photography among other things. However, Google subsequently clarified that the problem with Posts was really a bug, which was quickly fixed.

Why we care. SEOs will need to understand and follow the image and video guidelines in order to avoid rejection of their content. Portions of the guidelines are ambiguous, which will create some challenges. But this is arguably the most important provision: “Screenshots, stock photos, GIFs, other manually created imagery or imagery taken by other parties should not be uploaded. To be relevant, photos or videos must be taken by users at the location in question. If the primary subject of the content is irrelevant to the location, it may be removed.”