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Google said yesterday that now before it publishes any of your photos or videos you post in a Google My Business or Google Maps listing, it will review it before it can be published. Google said "We've made changes to our photo and video content policy. All photos and videos are now reviewed before publication." I am waiting to hear back how these reviews will be done, how much will be machine based versus human based.
Google posted this on the Google My Business Twitter handle:
We've made changes to our photo and video content policy. All photos and videos are now reviewed before publication. If you're having issues adding photos, check out our photo criteria: https://t.co/XR21n7uM9Z
— Google My Business (@GoogleMyBiz) March 5, 2020
This will likely slow down the process of getting new photos up on Google local listings.
Here is some of the feedback from local SEOs:
I think you've just shot the popularity of GMB posts (what there is) in the foot! 🤦♂️
— Andy Simpson (@ndyjsimpson) March 5, 2020
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Update: Waiting to hear directly from Google:
As a side note, from my experience, these rules and moderation appear to have been in place for some period of time
— Mike Blumenthal (@mblumenthal) March 6, 2020
Update 2: On March 9th, Google sent me this statement:
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.
