Google resolves rejected Posts problem

Last week many local SEOs discovered that their Google Posts were being rejected^[1]. The speculated reason was that images in these Posts violated Google’s guidelines. However, according to a Tweet yesterday from Mike Blumenthal, a “fix” went live yesterday allowing new Posts to publish.

Old Posts will post. The company also said that old Posts, which had been rejected, would be published “in the next few days.” Local SEOs should check for duplicates, in the event any of their Posts “got through” last week.

Google Post PSA Update: The Google has noted that the fix went live today for new posts so any new post you create should work as expected.

Google also noted that they will publish old posts that were rejected in the next few days.

— Mike Blumenthal (@mblumenthal) February 10, 2020^[2]

Bug vs. enforcement. This doesn’t address whether the most common SEO theory — Google seeking to enforce stricter compliance image guidelines — was truly to blame or whether this was some kind of bug. Use of the language “fix” suggests it was a bug and not Google seeking to get tougher on image quality.

Google did not respond to our request for insight or clarification.

Why we care. It will be interesting to see what the source of the problem was: a bug of some kind or stronger enforcement of image and video guidelines^[3]. Local SEOs were largely convinced of the latter. Regardless, Google needs to do a better job of communicating — especially if it’s seeking changes in the way local marketers approach Posts.

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