Why Are Videos for GMB Posts Rejected?

[Ryan Steinolfson]

Hi! Our videos for GMB posts are getting rejected even though:

1. All specs criteria have been met (video dimension, size and length).
2. Our content does not break GMB's policies

Does anyone know why this is happening?

 

[Conor Treacy]

Is this the same style thumbnail you have used on other videos? I know Facebook has issues with the amount of words showing on a thumbnail, I don't know if GMB has that though. I'd check to see if adding in a fairly plain looking thumbnail affects things (all other things being equal to other videos etc)

Don't know if that's the solution, but it's a part I'd recommend checking

 

[Professor M]

remove the youtube link, you cannot have links in the GMB Posts' text area.
You need to use the CTA button for the link.

For that matter, phone numbers and addresses are not allowed as well.

 

[Conor Treacy]

remove the youtube link, you cannot have links in the GMB Posts' text area.

Do you have a link to the guidelines on that? I found the Post Content Policy, but I'm guessing there must be another FULL list somewhere - Posts content policy - Google My Business Help

I've often used the CTA button for Learn More where I link to a blog post, but I usually also include a link in the post content itself (same with Youtube Videos). None of mine have been rejected, however, if it's against the policy, I want to rectify that moving forward.

 

[Joey Abna]

If you try that post again without the link in the post text let us know if it goes through. Professor M is right you aren't supposed to put links, phone numbers or addresses in the post text. Just like everything else with GMB I run across posts with links and phone numbers getting published. I used to not have very many problems with videos in GMB posts but the last few months I have all but given up on trying to get one published.

 

[Professor M]

Do you have a link to the guidelines on that? I found the Post Content Policy, but I'm guessing there must be another FULL list somewhere - Posts content policy - Google My Business Help

I've often used the CTA button for Learn More where I link to a blog post, but I usually also include a link in the post content itself (same with Youtube Videos). None of mine have been rejected, however, if it's against the policy, I want to rectify that moving forward.

it's rather implicit in the guidelines,
"links that negatively distract the reader's attention"
"Links to sites irrelevant to the business"

That's why many posts are rejected.

but for your reference check this GMB thread

Rejected Special Offer Post with not information on why the post was rejected - Google Business Profile Community

 

[Ryan Steinolfson]

We just tried without the youtube link. It still got rejected.

@Conor Treacy, thank you! But there's no option for adding a thumbnail in GMB when you upload the video directly. GMB itself defines thumbnails automatically. If you upload a video and a still image, you get a "carousel" type of thing which is not what we want.

 

[Conor Treacy]

it's rather implicit in the guidelines,
"links that negatively distract the reader's attention"
"Links to sites irrelevant to the business"

I guess I read that differently. "links that negatively distract" does not mean "no links".

Surely, if the post is 40 words, and it's got multiple links with full URLs showing in the middle of the post, then I can see those being distracting.

@Ryan Steinolfson So the thumbnail is being pulled from YouTube automatically then right? Could you try uploading the same video, unlisted, with a generic thumbnail with less text to see if that impacts you? Shooting in the dark here

 

[Ryan Steinolfson]

@Conor Treacy, we are actually posting the video directly (not pulled from Youtube) then added the Youtube link. But yeah, the video itself has a lot of text. Maybe it's 'cause of that?

 

[Conor Treacy]

@Conor Treacy, we are actually posting the video directly (not pulled from Youtube) then added the Youtube link. But yeah, the video itself has a lot of text. Maybe it's 'cause of that?

If it meets everything else, and you've removed links etc, then that's the only other part I could think of. I haven't uploaded video to GMB before, I've always posted to YouTube and included a link in text and Learn More button. Never had an issue.

Video directly posted to GMB is different and I've not done one there. Maybe I should and test it out. If it doesn't let you upload a thumbnail, does it give you 3 you can pick from (like YouTube does) or does it just take the opening frame and you're stuck with it?

Sorry, trying to be helpful while also realizing I'm out of my depth on this topic!

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

@Ryan Steinolfson @Conor Treacy
It's my feeling the AI tool used to analyse the vids is either broken or is so tightly dialled down it's not working. Have attempted a range of vids, including a think with Google marketing vid (made by Google), and the video gets rejected.

 

[Ryan Steinolfson]

So we just uploaded another video without much text on it and it got posted! We'll do another test tomorrow.
Thank you for the inputs @Conor Treacy!

We've already removed the link too. Thank you for the suggestion @Professor M.

I think so too @Margaret Ornsby.

I'll get back to you guys tomorrow after we do another test.

 

[Professor M]

@Ryan Steinolfson , @Conor Treacy @Margaret Ornsby, @Joey Abna

I remember that a few months ago I came across some cases where the videos were rejected but actually they were under moderation review
After 48h most of them were published and the rejection rate was much lower afterwards.

So probably is what is happening now, if any of you is having issues with video on Posts, probably it is worth just waiting for 48h-72h before deleting the post.

 

[Ryan Steinolfson]

Hi everyone! Here's an update.

We tried to wait for a couple of days (as @Professor M suggested) but the videos still got deleted. Today, we tried to upload a 26-second video that has text in it but no phone or contact details and it also got rejected. I'll leave it there to see if it gets approved in the next 72 hours. The description of the video doesn't have any link either.

We also uploaded another 30-second video from the video we are trying to upload that doesn't have any text and no link in the description and it also got rejected!

Any other ideas why this might be happening?

 

[Professor M]

not great news...
are you using the same user account to upload videos? Can you try uploading through another user account?

My other insight is that Google AI may think the video is for Financial Services service/product (due to the graphs, numbers, etc).