Photos and media

Categorized photo/video upload, EXIF, verification, and freshness.

Updated: 22 September 2026

Fresh, categorized photos and videos boost your profile's liveliness (prominence) and build customer trust. From the Photos screen you upload, categorize, and track the status of your media. Uploads are sent to your Google Business Profile.

Uploading

On the Photos screen, pick files in the upload area (multiple allowed).
In the dialog, choose a category and optionally a description.
Confirm — the file is sent to Google.

Supported: images (JPG/PNG/WEBP/GIF) and video (MP4/MOV/WEBM). Max 75 MB; business gallery photos must be between 10 KB and 5 MB.

Automatic behaviors

EXIF/GPS stripping: location/camera metadata in images is removed by default for privacy. (If you deliberately add coordinates with the GeoTag tool, it's preserved.)
Format conversion: WEBP/GIF are auto-converted to JPEG for the gallery (Google reliably publishes JPG/PNG in the gallery).
Video poster: a poster frame is generated client-side for videos.

The "needs attention" strip

The screen shows only measured problems: Google removed it / upload failed / not sent to Google / profile unverified. Because Google doesn't expose publish state in its API, there are NO fabricated "published/processing" labels.

If the profile is unverified, Google will NOT publish your uploaded media (an "unverified" count shows in the strip). Verification is Google's own process.

Audit target

The SEO Audit scores photos in the content category — the target is 27 photos with new uploads in the last 30 days (freshness). Permission: locations.manage.

Why it affects ranking

Photo volume and freshness are a prominence signal that increases profile engagement and completeness; categorized images (exterior/interior/product/team) help Google show your business in the right context.

What's next

To add location/brand metadata to photos, see the GeoTag tool; to publish content, Google Posts.