As Local Guides it’s often amazing which of all of our many photos that we contribute to Google Maps has the most views. We’ve come to call this our star photo and this post is all about such stars. It includes a set of leaderboards that showcase the star photos of hundreds of Local Guides from all over the world and presents a very detailed comparative analysis of their performance.
We all have a star photo, so you can join in to showcase yours and it’s simple to do. Simply hit this link or just leave a comment in this post and someone will jump in to help you.
So what can you learn from the Star Photos Leaderboards?
Well from the very detailed analysis of the star photos of the hundreds of participating Local Guides from all over the world, you can learn a lot about what type of places and what type of photos seem to get the most views on Google Maps and remember, views are important as they provide a fairly good indication on how helpful your photos are to Maps users.
Example Star Photo:
Here’s an example star photo added to Maps by @Trachemysta, a Level 10 Local Guide from Madrid, Spain. When describing his star photo, Trachemysta who joined the Top 100 Leaderboards only a couple of weeks ago, tells us that he took this picture after finishing the hiking trail to the top of Mt Scott at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, USA. You can read more about @Trachemysta’s star photohere.
Readme - How to Read the Star Photos leaderboards (November, 2024)
Briefly, this is what you need to know about the leaderboards in this post. For more details see the leaderboard documentation and the Leaderboard System’s online context-sensitive help information.
The leaderboards in this post present details about the star photos of hundreds of participating Local Guides from all over the world. We all have a star photo, it’s our photo that has the most views and we call these, the star views.
As well as an overall leaderboard, you will see leaderboards for different Local Guide levels which provide you with direct comparisons of your star photo’s views performance with that of your peers. Finally, there’s a leaderboard ranking the top 100 star photos by average star views per day which gives an indication on how good your star photo is. To be included in this leaderboard, you must have updated your star photo’s views in the period since the date of the last average star views per day leaderboard as posted here on Connect last month.
The average star views per day is calculated by dividing the star views by the life of the star photo expressed in days. The life of the star photo is equal to the number of days between when you first uploaded your star photo on Maps and the date that you last updated the star views and thus, will be different for each participating Local Guide. Therefore, for accuracy of the information it is important you enter the correct dates. When it comes to the date that you last updated the star views, point #2 above is very important.
As well as the star views and the date uploaded onto Maps, each listing on the leaderboards shows the Maps Category, and a description (e.g. Storefront, Building or Park) of the respective Local Guide’s star photo.
Hovering over any star photo’s Uploaded Date will display that star’s screenshot date.
If the Maps Category of a star photo is shown as a link and if the name of the relevant Place of Interest was provided by the respective Local Guide, then hovering over that link will show you the name of the place and selecting that link will take you to a screenshot with details of that place as stored on the Local Guides, 2024 Star Photos post, a “photo album” if you will, of star photos.
If the Maps Category of a star photo is shown on a colored background then that star photo has been selected as one of the best that meets the formatting requirements as specified in the Local Guides, 2024 Star Photos post. Select that star photo’s category and see why it has been rated as one of the best and read more about that star photo on the “photo album” post.
Preceding some of the leaderboards, you may see a number of featured star photos. If so, these are a selection from those that best meet the requirements as detailed in the Local Guides, 2024 Star Photos post.
Where shown, around leaderboard sequence numbers indicate that this is the first time that the Local Guide has participated on the Top 100 Local Guides leaderboards.
Where shown, ( ) around leaderboard sequence numbers indicate that this Local Guide levelled up/down onto this leaderboard.
An asterisk (*) shown after a Connect Username indicates that that Local Guide is a Connect Moderator.
Double asterisks (**) shown after a Connect Username indicates that that Local Guide is a Googler.
Hovering over a Local Guide’s username will display the integration number that integrates that Local Guide’s details on the Leaderboards System and Connect; the umbilical chord if you will between the two disparate systems.
Selecting a Connect Username will take you to that Local Guide’s Connect Profile.
Local Guides suspended or who have left the Local Guides program as well as those who have hidden their Maps profile are excluded from the Leaderboards.
Local Guides that have not updated their star photo details in the month covered by the Star Photo leaderboards will be excluded from the Average Views/Day leaderboard.
A ? or the words “Not set” in a cell indicates that the respective value cannot be determined or hasn’t been provided by or for the respective Local Guide.
The data for the leaderboards in this post was read at 1313 on Thursday, December 6, 2024 (UTC).
Local Guides included on the leaderboards must check their entries for any errors. If you should find any errors or omissions, please add the details in a comment on this post. Regarding omissions, please note point 17 above.
As has been the case for a couple months now, there are some formatting issues that need fixing on these Leaderboards that will be attended to shortly. In the meantime, appreciate everyone doing the usual checking of the data.
Level 7 Local Guide @SvenJacobs from Limburg, Netherlands continues to impress us all with his amazing star photo of Grand Central Terminal, New York. Having your photo as the POI’s cover photo for a busy train station like this can certainly clock up an amazing views count.
I’m pleased that you enjoy seeing your star photo featured as an example @Trachemysta. I suggest that you edit your star post and try to add the caption to the image itself rather than adding it at the top of your post as you have done. It’s simple to do. Here are the steps:
Select the pencil icon to Edit your post
Cut and paste your caption into the clipboard
Select Show Preview
Select the pencil below your image
Paste your caption from the clipboard and into the caption text box.
Select Save Edit
I’d also appreciate if you could delete your message posted above amongst the Leaderboards and add it below. This way readers of this post can more easily follow the flow of all the leaderboards in the post before comments. Thanks for your understanding.
Thanks @AdamGT, I have tried to edit my post, not sure if now it is correct. The legend only shows up when you click on the picture, not appearing in the post itself.
No that’s not correct @Trachemysta. You’ve added the description to the image and not that caption. What you need to add to the image is the following: “Caption: Star photo by @Trachemysta of Mt Scott uploaded onto Google Maps on 07/07/2019 and showing star views of 7,279,350 as at 2024-12-06” So your post itself should look something like this:
Hey there Adam! Hope everything is well! Thanks for the mention. I have not been very active lately since the views on my star image of the Grand Central Terminal has not been updated since the last update. I hope that they will find a fix for it soon. Or do I have the maximum amount of views
Thank you @AdamGT for all your hard work on the November Star Photos leaderboards, considering the added workload with the New Connect. I noticed that the link to the October leaderboard isn’t working for any board. The header is not positioned in the middle of the page.
![Caption: Star photo by @Trachemysta of [Mt Scott] uploaded onto Google Maps on 07/07/2019 and showing star views of 7,279,350 as at 2024-12-06](https://d34vm3j4h7f97z.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/d/8/2d82e138ea46859a2f5a3b228f6577adf83fe693.jpeg)
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