I’ve been contributing to Google Maps long enough to build up a decent sample — a little under 18,000 photos and more than 186 million views — so I recently went through my rankings top to bottom to see if there was a pattern worth passing along.
There was, and it wasn’t what you might expect.
You may think scenic shots or carefully plated food would lead.
They don’t. 
The ones that actually lead are almost all practical, wide views of a place:
- Store interiors
- Department layouts
- Storefronts
- Malls and outlets
- Airports
- The kind of shot that answers: “What does this place actually look like?”
Here’s the part I think is useful for the rest of us.
When I lined everything up, nothing I’ve taken breaks past roughly 600,000 views except wide, information-rich views of places.
Not one plated dish, not one pretty scenic view or sunsuet shot.
My highest food photo tops out around 534,000 views — and even that isn’t a plate. It’s a bakery display case.
A “What can I choose from?” shot.
That turned out to be the whole lesson in miniature.
Food photos absolutely perform. They show up by the hundreds throughout my rankings and give me some of my most consistent numbers.
But in my own results, they seem to have a ceiling.
Wide place shots don’t.
And even near the top of the food list, the strongest performers aren’t necessarily the prettiest plates. They’re often the ones that show the most at a glance:
- A full display case
- A whole spread
- The actual portion someone will receive
Different subjects. But to the same destination they lead: usefulness.
A wide store interior answers:
What will I find inside?
A bakery case answers:
What can I choose from?
A full-meal shot answers:
What will my order actually look like?
The photos that climb seem to be the ones answering a question someone has before they ever walk in.
None of this is a universal formula that I’m aware of. It’s simply the pattern I’ve found in my own contribution history, and other Local Guides may see something completely different.
But if you’re trying to get more out of your contributions, it may be worth looking at your own numbers.
The shot that documents a place clearly may travel farther than the one that’s simply nice to look at.
It’s changed how I shoot.
Less time chasing the best-looking photo, and more time asking:
What question does this photo answer?
Pretty, a photo can be. Helpful, it must be.
Here’s a sampling of differnt tiers throughout my most viewed photos.
So I’ll turn it over to you:
In your contributions, what tends to pull the most views — wide shots of the place, food, storefronts, or something else?
I’m curious whether the same pattern shows up across other Local Guides.
