Upload real photos you took at your location: Google recommends at least three exterior, three interior and three product or food photos, plus photos of your team and your work. Keep photos in JPG or PNG between 10 KB and 5 MB, and keep videos to 30 seconds and 75 MB or less at 720p or higher. Refresh regularly, since your newest media shows first, and skip geotagging, which has no documented effect on ranking.
The rest of this guide covers Google’s rules, a shot list for a full refresh, and what the 2026 changes to Google Maps mean for your photos.
Why photos matter more in 2026
Your Business Profile is often the first thing a customer sees after hearing your name, and the profile has changed.
- Q&A changed. Google’s developer changelog says it discontinued the Q&A API on November 3, 2025 while “updating the Q&A functionality and user experience.” Businesses and their software tools can no longer read or post questions and answers through the API.
- Ask Maps arrived. On March 12, 2026, Google announced Ask Maps, a conversational feature built on Gemini that answers complex questions about places. It rolled out in the US and India on Android and iOS. Google says it draws on information from more than 300 million places, including reviews from more than 500 million contributors.
- Customers read AI summaries. BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey found 82% of consumers read AI-generated review summaries, and 36% rank an appealing photo or video accompanying a review among the factors they weigh.
The practical upshot: more of a customer’s first impression is assembled for them, from your profile, your reviews and your photos. Clear, accurate imagery is part of what you control.
Google’s photo and video specs
Google’s photo and video guidelines are short. Your business must be verified before your photos and videos appear.
| Requirement | |
|---|---|
| Photo format | JPG or PNG |
| Photo file size | 10 KB to 5 MB |
| Photo resolution | 720 x 720 px recommended, 250 x 250 px minimum |
| Photo quality | In focus, well lit, no significant alterations or excessive filters |
| Video length | Up to 30 seconds |
| Video file size | Up to 75 MB |
| Video resolution | 720p or higher |
Google’s tips for business photos add that images should have no significant alterations or “excessive use of filters or AI,” and should represent reality.
What Google’s media guidelines discourage
Google’s Business Profile media policy points to its tips for posting media to Maps as additional criteria photos and videos must meet. The main points:
- Use media you captured yourself. Avoid screenshots, stock photos, GIFs, collages, heavily edited images and imagery created by other parties.
- Create the media at the location, with the place as the main subject.
- Avoid adding borders, text or collaged images. Keep any superimposed content relevant to the place.
- Light filters are fine if the image still shows the place accurately. Heavy filters are not.
Low-quality media may be removed, and Google says quality removals cannot be appealed.
Owner photos, customer photos, cover and logo
Your profile holds two kinds of media: what you upload and what customers upload. You control the first. For the second, you can request removal of a customer photo or video that violates Google’s policies, for example if it is not of your business or raises a privacy concern. Reviews of those requests can take several business days, and Google warns that submitting multiple requests for the same content can slow things down. Removal is for policy violations, so an unflattering but accurate photo is unlikely to qualify. That is another reason to keep your own uploads current.
Two profile images get special treatment:
- Logo. Google highlights your logo once basic information such as phone number and hours is complete.
- Cover photo. You can set one, but Google says doing so does not guarantee it will appear as the first image. Choose a cover that works as a standalone image, and make sure your other photos are strong enough that whatever Google shows first still represents you well.
Recognition first. Google's own guidance is to photograph your exterior from each direction customers approach. The goal is that a first-time visitor recognizes your door from the street.
Shot list for a Google Business Profile refresh
This list follows the categories and minimums in Google’s tips, with our notes on how to shoot each.
| Shot | Google’s suggested minimum | How to shoot it | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exterior with signage | 3 | One from each direction customers approach; signage legible; different times of day | Recognition from the street |
| Entrance and parking | Part of exterior | The door, the lot or nearest street parking, any accessible entrance | Answers practical questions before a first visit |
| Interior | 3 | Wide shots at a customer’s eye level; clean, lit, lightly occupied | Shows what it feels like to be inside |
| Products, menu or food and drink | 3 | Best sellers, evenly lit, exactly as customers receive them | Drives the decision to visit |
| At work | 3 | Your team delivering the service | Shows what you actually do |
| Team | 3 | Owners and staff, less formal than a headshot | Puts faces to the business |
| Common areas or rooms | 1 per common area; 3 rooms for hotels | Lobby, patio, event space, guest rooms | Critical for hotels, venues and event spaces |
| Aerial exterior | Not a Google category | Wide view of the building and grounds, where legal and useful | Helps large properties, campuses, venues and outdoor sites |
| Short video | Not specified | 15 to 30 seconds: street to entrance to interior, or a product being made | Motion shows scale and atmosphere photos can miss |
A few Detroit-specific notes. Shoot at least one winter exterior, since customers see your building in snow for a good part of the year and a summer-only profile can make the entrance hard to recognize. If you are on a busy corridor or inside a larger building, show the exact door. For aerials, remember that commercial drone flights need an FAA-certificated pilot and, in controlled airspace, an authorization. Our Detroit drone rules guide explains what that means in practice.
Video that works on a profile
Thirty seconds is short, so each clip should do one thing:
- The approach. From the sidewalk, through the door, into the room.
- The signature. One product or dish being made or served.
- The room. A slow pan of the space at a typical busy moment.
Stabilize the footage, skip text overlays, and let the place carry the clip. If you already produce short-form video for social, trim versions to 30 seconds for your profile rather than shooting separately.
Refresh cadence
Google says your newest media appears first on your profile, so an old upload quietly becomes your storefront if nothing replaces it. A workable rhythm:
- Monthly: add three to five new photos, such as a new product, a seasonal menu item or a busy moment.
- Seasonally: a fuller refresh of exteriors, interiors and hero products, including a winter exterior.
- Immediately: after a renovation, new signage, a menu change or a move.
The same logic shows up in how customers read reviews. BrightLocal found 74% of consumers look for reviews written in the last three months. Current photos signal an active business in the same way.
Geotagging and other myths
Geotagging photos does not help rankings. Some local SEO advice says to embed GPS coordinates in photo EXIF data before uploading. In a January 2024 test, Sterling Sky added geotagged images to five Business Profiles and found “no measurable impact on rankings in the local pack.” The test also found that Google removed the geotags from the photos after upload. Google’s own explanation of local ranking lists relevance, distance and prominence, and says nothing about photo metadata.
More photos is not a ranking shortcut. Google’s local ranking tips do include adding photos and videos, but frame them as a way to “show customers what you offer and tell the story of your business.” Nothing Google publishes suggests that volume alone moves rankings. Upload photos because they help a customer decide, and quality will do more than quantity.
Stock photos are not a safe placeholder. Google’s media guidelines tell contributors to avoid them, and a customer who sees a stock image and then a different reality on arrival is likely to say so in a review.
How photos relate to AI answers
It is tempting to claim that photos “feed the AI.” Here is what is actually documented. Google says Ask Maps analyzes information from more than 300 million places, including community reviews, and that Gemini models analyze Street View and aerial imagery to help with navigation. Google has not said how, or whether, owner-uploaded profile photos are weighted in Ask Maps answers.
What is clear is that customers see your photos alongside AI-generated summaries, and BrightLocal notes that summaries can obscure details like photos and review recency. So the job of your photos is to confirm, quickly and accurately, what the summary says: that the patio exists, the entrance is easy to find, the food looks like the reviews describe. Our guide to AI search for local businesses covers the wider picture.
When to bring in a photographer
Many businesses can handle monthly updates with a phone and good light. A professional shoot makes sense for the seasonal refresh, a new opening, a renovation, food and product photography, or aerial exteriors of larger properties. We shoot Business Profile sets as part of our commercial photography work, and our drone team handles aerial exteriors where the site and airspace allow.