Geotagging photos for Google My Business (now called Google Business Profile) means writing map coordinates into a photo’s data before you upload it, in the hope that Google ranks you higher in those places. The evidence doesn’t support it. Testers found that Google removes the location data when photos are uploaded, a Google analyst has reportedly said Search doesn’t use that hidden photo data for ranking, and the one test that found a gain also found losses elsewhere.
Your time is better spent on real, recent job photos, taken the same way on every job and used well on your website. Below is what the tests show, what isn’t proven, a simple photo routine for crews, and the image specs we use on contractor websites.
What geotagging is, and what people claim
Every phone photo carries hidden data called EXIF: the camera, the date and, if location is on, the GPS coordinates where it was taken. Geotagging tools let you change those coordinates, for example to the center of a town you want to rank in.
The claim goes like this: upload photos tagged with towns across your service area, and Google will treat you as more relevant there. It sounds technical, it’s cheap to sell, and it gets repeated a lot. That’s not the same as being tested.
What the evidence says
Google removes the location when you upload
Sterling Sky, a local search agency, tested geotagged photos on five Business Profiles that weren’t otherwise being worked on. Each got three geotagged photos, and three of the businesses also got geotagged photos on their websites. Over several weeks, they saw no measurable change in rankings or traffic. They also found the geotags were gone from the photos after upload. You can check this yourself: download one of your own profile photos and look at its details. Whitespark’s Darren Shaw reports the same in his write-up on the myth.
A 2025 test found a narrow gain and wider losses
A larger test, published in Search Engine Land in 2025, used 27 lawn care Business Profiles. After a five-week period with location data stripped from the photos, the team posted two photos a week for five weeks, each tagged with the center of a different target town, and tracked rankings on a map grid.
The result was mixed. Rankings for “near me” searches improved in the targeted towns. The other measures showed no gain, and several went down, including searches that named a city and the average rank across the whole service area. The author’s agency stopped geotagging client photos afterward.
That gain doesn’t fit neatly with the finding that the data is removed on upload. One test in one industry can’t settle why. What it does show is that even when something moved, the overall picture got worse.
What Google has said
Google hasn’t published a statement on geotagged Business Profile photos. The closest comments are these:
- John Mueller of Google, in a Reddit reply cited in the Search Engine Land article: “No need to geotag images for SEO.”
- Martin Splitt of Google said at SMX Advanced in 2024 that Google Search doesn’t use EXIF data for ranking, as Search Engine Roundtable reported.
- Google’s page on improving your local ranking names three factors: relevance, distance and prominence. It describes photos as a way to show customers what you offer and tell your story. It says nothing about photo coordinates, and it says you can’t pay or ask for a better local ranking.
Proven, not proven
- Shown in tests: location data is gone from photos after they’re uploaded to a Business Profile.
- Not proven: that geotagged photos raise your Maps rankings. Two tests found no broad benefit.
- One test suggests: a small “near me” gain in tagged towns, with losses almost everywhere else.
- Unknown: whether Google reads anything before the data is removed. Nobody outside Google can say.
What actually helps: real, recent job photos
Photos do matter to customers. Someone choosing between two roofers will look at the work. Google’s photo guidance asks for images that are in focus, well lit and true to life, without heavy filters. Profile uploads must be JPG or PNG, between 10 KB and 5 MB, with 720 by 720 pixels recommended.
What makes photos useful:
- Your own work. Finished jobs, the crew, the equipment, a truck with your name on it. No stock photos.
- Recent. Add a few after each job worth showing, instead of 50 at once and then nothing for a year. We can’t promise this moves rankings. It does show customers you’re busy and current.
- Permission. Ask the homeowner before posting. A line in your estimate or contract makes it routine. Keep house numbers, license plates and children out of the frame.
- Words on the website. Google’s image SEO guidance says it learns what an image shows from the page around it, including captions. On your own site, a photo with a caption and a short paragraph about the job does more than a bare gallery.
A before, during and after routine for crews
Make it the same three shots on every job, so nobody has to think about it.
Before
Take a wide shot from a spot you can find again, such as the end of the driveway or a corner of the yard. Add one close-up of the problem: the cracked slab, the dead limb, the water stain.
During
Take one or two photos of the work in progress, especially the parts the customer will never see again: the drainage stone, the new framing, the trench before it’s backfilled. These show care in a way a finished photo can’t.
After
Stand in the same spot as the before shot, at the same height and angle. Clean up first. Daylight beats a flash.
Simple habits that keep it going
- Wipe the lens before each shot. Phone lenses on job sites get dusty.
- Hold the phone sideways for wide shots, which fit website layouts better.
- Drop the photos into one shared album per job, named by job number rather than the customer’s name.
- Once a week, one person picks the best few from each job for the website and the profile.
Image specs for your website
Your website needs more care with photos than the profile does, because the files sit on your pages and affect how fast they load.
- Size. Resize the long side to about twice the widest the photo appears on the page, which keeps it sharp on high-density screens. Lighthouse’s properly size images check flags photos bigger than they’re shown. Serve smaller versions to phones with
srcset. - Format. WebP or AVIF for the site, both supported by Google Search. Keep a JPEG copy of the original for the Business Profile, which takes only JPG or PNG.
- File names. Short and descriptive, with hyphens:
stump-grinding-after-backyard.webp, notIMG_4482.JPG. - Alt text. Describe what’s in the photo, in plain words: “Driveway regraded and topped with crushed stone”. Don’t stuff it with town names and keywords.
- Captions. One line with the job and the town, for example “Basement egress window, cut and finished, in [town]”.
- Location data. Strip it before publishing photos of customers’ homes. Here the GPS data is a privacy problem, because it can point straight to the house.
Then put each photo where it does a job: on the page for that service, on a project page for a notable job with the before, during and after shots and a few lines about the work, and on your Business Profile. If you serve several towns, a real project in a town gives that town’s page something true to show, as our guide to service area pages for contractors explains. Photos are also one of the items in our contractor website checklist.
Where we come in
You don’t need a geotagging tool. You need a habit of three photos per job and a website that shows them well. When we build a contractor website, we use your own phone photos, resized, named and captioned, on the service and project pages they belong to. Send a few recent job photos and the services you want more of through our contact page, and we’ll tell you where they’d go.
