GBP logo on phone concept image for Google Business Profile post.

We’ve been hearing rumblings from other agencies and in-house marketers in recent weeks who are experiencing their Google Business Profile posts getting rejected when trying to publish them. But why?

It has come to our attention that Google has updated its content policy for local business listings to help fight what they consider spam. Items such as duplicate photos, logos, posts and videos are now considered spam and may end up being removed from your Google Business Profile (GBP) profile.

Historically, Google had a clear content policy that included everything from misspellings to gimmicky character usage to phishing scams, but the duplicate content piece is a brand new addition to their terms page.

The new policy seems fairly cut and dry, but nuance exists as to how Google will deny posts, especially for embedded logos in imagery. Search engine expert Barry Schwartz gives his overview of the update in this weekly Google recap.

Should digital marketers freak out if all of their posts have watermarked logos embedded in images? We don’t think so as long as the images themselves are not repurposed over and over again for multiple Google Business Profile posts/updates to your GBP profile. But we are talking about Google here and if there’s one thing we can say about them, it’s that they’re unpredictable and digital marketers should be vigilant with their local SEO efforts.

We’ll continue to monitor this update and their implications for digital marketers.