Google quietly updated its content policies for Business Profile posts last month! adding a single line under the “avoid spam” section. It seems Colan Nielsen was the first person to spot the change on August 5! quickly posting about the update on Twitter and Localsearchforum.com.
In his original forum post
Colan included the following image to gambling database highlight the subtle change made to Google’s content policies in the update:
The update simply added the text “duplicate photos! posts! videos! and logos” to the list of content considered as spam. Google specifically states that such content is “not allowed” under its policies and this single line of text could have a significant impact on the type of posts businesses are allowed to publish.
What does this update mean for Business Profile posts?
The update to Google’s content policies and if something goes wrong for Business Profile posts leaves plenty of room for interpretation. Hopefully! Google will provide some clarification but! for now! the update raises some important questions:
- Does duplication apply to single business locations or multiple locations! too?
- Will overlaying images and videos with company logos cause problems?
- Is content in archived posts ignored or considered?
- Can businesses delete and repost to avoid duplication?
We hope Google will allow companies to post
The same content across multiple usa b2b list locations but we’re speculating without clarification on this. It might mean that you can! for example! post the same blog on various profiles but with a different image and text. Again! we’re not 100% sure. We’re also hopeful that overlaying images and videos with logos won’t cause any issues! as long as you’re not using the same image or video repeatedly – but this is our logical interpretation of the limited information provided.
It’s more difficult to say whether content in archived posts will be considered or ignored in duplication assessment. By default! posts are automatically archived after six months! unless you set a date range that exceeds this period. Users will no longer see these posts in Search or Maps so we have to question whether reusing content in a live post that’s also used in an archived post could be considered duplication.
Finally! if you’ve got legitimate reasons to republish the same content in Business Profile posts! the obvious workaround would be to delete previous posts before publishing the latest version. Presumably! this would avoid any potential duplication issues but this is something we’ll need to test to confirm.
