Google Profile Video Specs

Hello Barb. Quick question regarding uploading videos to my business profile.

Do you have a preference of aspect ratio for videos that you upload to your profile, and does it even matter? I was thinking of using square (1080x1080) or portrait (1080x1350) since Google is mobile first. But I'm guessing there's no added benefit or negative for aspects? Google video guidelines mention nothing about aspect ratios, or frame rates for that matter…

Hi Erin, great question!

Google's photo and video guidelines are lumped together.

-UP to 30 seconds long
-UP to 75 MB
-720p or higher resolution

I've uploaded square and landscape (16:9) successfully. Here are my examples.

Cool, thanks for the reply. Yeah I'll give square a try at first. Not a big fan of the quality drop when Google processes the videos. I think they display at 720p at the highest quality, which is ok for phones but not great for desktop. Considering the specs are so low to begin with. Would love to see the specs get higher in the future.

I think I was wrong about the display quality. It looks more like 320p or 540p… Would you have any idea why the display quality is so low? https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=active+dynamics#lpg=cid:CgIgAQ%3D%3D,ik:CAoSLEFGMVFpcE42QUFyMGMzUzdLSDFLdl9DcW85d0RodklIdFlHcU8yT1NvdzQy

Nope, I don't know.

Ok. I'm guessing it's the compression algorithm. I tested a landscape 1920x1080 version with the same results. At that quality it's pretty pixeled for videos with lots of fast movement, which most of my videos will have. Good to know for future reference, but I'm not sure if that's the quality I'd want a potential client to see since I'm promoting high quality video production.

My plan was to use videos in my updates, but I might just go with images instead and add a demo link to a Learn More button.

Granted I haven't done enough testing, but I'm curious as to why Google has such a low video compression algorithm for business profiles. Images look great though.

Quick question Barb. I looked at around at some other video production google listings and some seem to be using videos in their profile. Regardless of display quality, are there any benefits in using video in a listing over images, from a google seo standpoint?

Hey @erin we used to be able to see specific photo and video stats but the recent changes to GBP have removed that ability. Unfortunately this means I/you can't see how one performs over another. But I do know adding content - images or video - will always outperform listings with no content.

Ok thanks, makes sense. Too bad they removed those analytics.