Blog

Google Street View "Trusted" is gone: what applies to your business virtual tour now

If you are looking for a "Google certified photographer" to get your business onto Maps, you are looking for something that no longer exists.

The Street View Trusted programme ended on 31 December 2024. The badge, the marketing materials, the dedicated support and the for hire photographer directory went with it.

We are stating it plainly because a number of Greek pages, and several international guides, still advertise the badge as though it were current.

The point is simple. The capability did not go away. It changed hands.

What exactly stopped and what did not

Stopped: the Street View Trusted badge, the certification, the associated marketing materials, and the public photographer directory through which you found a professional.

Did not stop: anything your customer sees. Existing tours, standalone panoramas and connected paths work normally on Maps.

If you already have a tour on your profile, you need to do absolutely nothing.

In place of certification Google put a tool, Street View Studio. Google's own page now lists Studio alongside partner third party tools. The Street View Publish API also remains active and documented.

So Google stopped certifying people and opened publishing to everyone.

What this means when you choose a partner

When anyone can publish, the badge stops being a criterion. The criteria become technical.

Capture quality. Resolution, correct horizon levelling, clean stitching, correct exposure in high contrast spaces.

Correct path connectivity. A tour where the user gets lost is not a tour.

File ownership. Ask before, not after.

What happens after a renovation. What does it cost to reshoot a single room?

One practical detail explains most of the "why isn't it showing yet" questions. According to Google's own Maps documentation, connections between individual 360 photos appear a few days after publishing, and only outdoor footage can be converted from video.

Nothing is broken. It simply is not instant.

Why we are the ones telling you

We could have left this unwritten. The badge was a convenient sales argument.

We are writing it because the alternative is selling something that does not exist. And because a client who works out on their own that "certified" was decorative is right never to come back.

If someone presents you the Trusted badge today as an active certification, they are not necessarily deceiving you. They probably have not caught up. But that tells you something too.

#Google Street View, #Google Maps, #Επιχειρήσεις

I want my own 360° presentation → Back to the Posts