71% of my pics had views after just 15 hours

[MortenCopenhagen]

Finally, a bit of good news following the February 7th photo view counter bug/crash.

On July 12 I hinted in this update that photo views started showing up more quickly.

Yesterday on Saturday July 27th I went on a photo walk that resulted in 28 new Google Maps photos. This morning after only 15 hours I checked the status of all 28 photos. And I’m happy to report the following:

Only 8 (29%) showed no views. This means that 71% showed some views after only 15 hours. This is a huge improvement compared to resently when we needed to wait 4 to 7 days before any views showed up.

4 (14%) of my 28 photos showed 1-20 views.

12 (43%) showed 21-99 views

4 (14%) showed 100+ views.

From a motivational perspective I think it is important to give Local Guides prompt feedback on our contributions.

Below I share screenshots taken this morning. You are also welcome to follow along under my unrestricted Maps Profile.

Are you also seeing photo views show up more quickly now?

The substantial drop in photo views compared to before February 7th is still an issue.

Cheers

Morten

[IntranetMiRi]

Hi @MortenCopenhagen ,

das sind doch mal gute Nachrichten.

Ja, ich kann hier in Deutschland auch beobachten, dass neu hochgeladene Fotos jetzt wieder schneller mit Zugriffszahlen versehen werden. Das ist wirklich motivierend.

Ich frage mich auch, warum das nicht bei allen neuen Fotos gleich schnell klappt. Vielleicht werden bei gefeatureten Fotos die Zähler schneller aktualisiert?

Viele Grüße

Michael

[WilfriedB]

Hello @MortenCopenhagen thank you for the heads up!

I can confirm the trend. Just two days ago. I had more than 100 views for three pictures within less than 12 hours, some dozens more were added two hours later.

Here some more observations:

• Already end of June, I noticed “early views”
• It is key, to get a prominent (“featured”) position in the list, but it seems, when uploading multiple photos, not more than 3 are shown in top positions
• Posting older (taken date) photos gives a lower chance to reach a prominent position, but is also depending on the number of media items already existing for that place.

Some numbers:

[TorM]

Hi @MortenCopenhagen ,

Yes, view counts are for many Pictures available after 48 hours.

While for Pictures I did upload 8 weeks ago and they are even featured pictures on this place, I still have no View count Update.

But I believe it will come after a while anyway.

Anyway this Trend motivated me, to start my Upload sessions again in full scale.

[MrAdityaKumar]

@MortenCopenhagen Wow! That’s great. Thank you informing about this. But unfortunately in my photos it takes about a week even then after not shows views of some photos.

As you mention, similarly I also found some photos views start showing in 2-3 days.

Thank you so much Morten Copenhagen

[WilfriedB]

One more thing @MortenCopenhagen :
Until end of June, the views were updated only once a day (at least, I am still sure, my observation was correct at the time).

Starting not later than July 2, this is no longer true. Although I believe the numbers are still not updated in real time, they do change more than once a day, as I just noticed seconds ago.

[WilfriedB]

@IntranetMiRi

Hallo Michael, zu “Ich frage mich auch, warum das nicht bei allen neuen Fotos gleich schnell klappt. Vielleicht werden bei gefeatureten Fotos die Zähler schneller aktualisiert?”

Zumindest bei meinen Fotos gibt es dazu eine Erklärung:

Es hängt stark davon ab, an welcher Stelle die Fotos erscheinen. Wie oben schon erwähnt, zeigten drei meiner neuesten Fotos in weniger als einem Tag hunderte Aufrufe. Wenn ich mir die Seite anschaue, stehen die tatsächlich an zweiter, dritter und fünfter Stelle, eine weiteres mit fünf Aufrufen an zweiter Stelle unter “Speisekarte”. Ich hab mir mal die Mühe gemacht und weiter nach unten geblättert. Bei Position 100 hab ich dann aufgehört zu zählen und das nächste meiner Fotos (bislang ohne Aufrufe) erschien dann weit hinter dem hundertsten.

Unter “Neueste”, belegten 9 meiner Fotos die Plätze 4 bis 12 und unter “Von mir” waren auch nur 9 zu sehen.

Bei anderen Fotos habe ich kürzlich auch ähnliches beobachtet.

In dem Fall ist es wohl nicht die Frage, wann der Zähler aktualisiert wird, sondern die übrigen Fotos wurden schlich weg noch nicht aufgerufen, weil sich wohl kaum jemand hunderte von Fotos anschaut.

Möglicherweise hat sich auch etwas an dem Algorithmus geändert, der entscheidet, an welcher Position die Fotos erscheinen. Ich hab festgestellt, dass sie sich im Laufe der Zeit nicht nur nach unten, sondern auch nach oben bewegen können.

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi @WilfriedB and @IntranetMiRi

I think we need to separate discussions on how we get a lot of views and how quickly the view counter starts ticking after photos are uploaded.

I think those photos where views show up later are likely those that get fewer views. That makes sense, but some reports have mentioned that even top featured images can show no views for several days. That is very difficult to explain. Maybe others have studied this more closely?

Cheers

Morten

[TerryPG]

Hi @MortenCopenhagen and @WilfriedB I too have noticed an improvement on photos I contribute, I am not contributing as much I used too, but I do see a positive change.

[tony_b]

At this point I’m unable to confirm this new trend @MortenCopenhagen . My newest photos with views are 1 week old, but there was a brief time when I was seeing views at 4 or 5 days. Definitely not 15 hours or less.

My guess is that it depends on the type of POI and how “in demand” its product or service is.

[tony_b]

This is an interesting observation @WilfriedB , but some of us don’t have the time to look back through all our photos multiple times per day. I might notice if a new photo goes from zero to a few views, but unless I’m recording the info I won’t realize that other photos have moved from 1000 to 1010 to 1021 at different times during the same day.

[IntranetMiRi]

@WilfriedB

Hallo Wilfried,

Danke für deine Erklärung, das klingt für mich plausibel und sehr gut beobachtet.

Dass Fotos später auch noch auf eine bessere Position aufsteigen können und nicht immer nur weiter nach unten abrutschen ist mir auch schon länger aufgefallen.

Viele Grüße

Michael

[TravellerG]

Sorry, I don’t think so… my dear friend @MortenCopenhagen Ji…

Here, I have not felt it… let me study for 2 days & update you…

Thanks for your kind efforts and valuable update.

Regards with greetings

[WilfriedB]

A short update:

Three out of ten photos posted last Thursday which showed hundreds within less than 12 hours passed the 1,000 mark last night, three other are now on 5, two didn’t even show up under “By me” (“Von mir”). Both of the latter are public, one even having 10 views now (5 more than two hours ago).

[WilfriedB]

Good morning @MortenCopenhagen and Michael @IntranetMiRi reg. : “even top featured images can show no views for several days”

Surprising, but explainable: If nobody or less than 4 users search the place, it would be the consequences. Especially after we lost the “automatic views”, which used to appear before Feb 7 within seconds after posting.

As somebody said before, after being spoiled with thousands and millions of views until January, we simply need to change our expectations. No more centimeters but miles, centigrade instead of Fahrenheit or just a different currency.

As I said before, Google never told us, what is really counted as on view, but many of us just assume, it was correct before and must be wrong now. While we still don’t know, I believe, it is more realistic and based on real user behavior now.

Another example, I noticed just now:

A photo, I posted five weeks ago (06/22), always got a delta less than 10 every 3 to 7 days, the first time 11 days after posting. Suddenly I see a delta of 343 = 879% more than yesterday.

Why?? Well, the photo shows a detail of a park and there was a big festival just this weekend. I don’t know since when, but the photo is on position 9 of 5,927 now.

Assuming the real views of that photo will be one or two by day again during the next days, weeks, months … and considering the “1% rule”, I wonder, how long it will take for the next update …?

[WilfriedB]

@tony_b reg “depends on the type of POI and how “in demand” its product or service is”

Agree. See the white spaces in my chart above and also see my update to the comment above.

[PattyBlack]

@MortenCopenhagen @WilfriedB anche se non sto pubblicando tantissimo, confermo che da qualche settimana i numeri delle visualizzazioni vengono aggiornati più rapidamente dopo la pubblicazione, ma comunque ho alcune foto e video a zero visualizzazioni anche dopo più di un mese, queste compaiono “pubblicate da te” se verifico i POI. Per esempio: foto e video di una stazione ferroviaria in Svizzera dove invece risultano pubblicate e con like e visualizzazioni foto delle montagne e del lago circostanti alla stazione. Stessa cosa per la stazione ferroviaria di Tirano (ho fatto scorrere le foto per cercare le mie per vedere la posizione, ho trovato una foto di una tomba!) Ma anche se le segnalo restano lì oscurando la visibilità delle foto del luogo perché aumentano il numero.

Un’altra cosa che non capisco è perché se una foto è stata nascosta non appare più l’avviso con il simbolo sul mio profilo? Almeno sapevo di avere foto nascoste e quindi decidere se rimuoverle! Scusa Morten sono fuori tema

[WilfriedB]

@PattyBlack only since you mentioned “why if a photo has been hidden the warning with the symbol no longer appears” I realized the same for the three photos I mentioned above. In that case, it was not the SPAM filter rejecting the photos, Instead many months after posting and gaining views, the POI was changed to a geographical feature thus my photos appear now under “unknown place”.

FYI @MortenCopenhagen

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi @PattyBlack

I rarely see the “!” in a triangle-warnings. So my observations on this are not to be trusted. It could be that Google decided to stop using them or the use is limited to some regions. Hopefully, others know more about this.

Cheers

Morten

[MortenCopenhagen]

@WilfriedB

Regarding what can boost the views.

I just wanted to mention that the category and the popularity of places are not the only great sources of views. When your photo or video gets included in the explore feed for an area this can boost the views. Look under the heading “Latest in XXX” for a city near you. Also, your contributions can sometimes get promoted to also be shown under photos for a city, a city district, or the country.

Cheers

Morten