Google has made an adjustment to the photo and video content policy for Google My Business listings.
Going forward, photos and videos will be reviewed before being published.
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
Given that a mandatory review was not in place before, you can likely expect some delay with photos and videos showing up on a GMB profile after being uploaded.
Google did not state whether photos and videos will be automatically reviewed by AI, or if content will pass through a team of human reviewers.
A human review process could lead to a longer delay in content being published. However, human reviewers may catch things that machines can’t.
Applicable to User Generated Content Only
To the best of my understanding, this policy change only applies to content submitted by other users.
In the tweet linked to above, Google points to a help page that specifically applies to the Maps user contributed content policy.
That means content uploaded directly by the business owner is not subject to being reviewed before publishing.
Other than the new review process, there have been no further changes to the policies on user generated content in Google My Business.
