This post is where you ask questions or comment about any one of the star videos in the Local Guides 2025 Album of Star Videos or star videos generally. Please do not add them as comments in the star video album post. Any such comments added there will be moved to this dedicated 2025 star videos discussion post.
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Oh my gosh ye 2 again @AdamGT & @Annaelisa
Be brutally honest do I have to this all again for 2025 stars entries
Photo/Video/360Sphereâs
You seen how long it took last year
Please say copy & paste ye guys
Youâd imagine Iâm good now with this but sleepless nights ahead here
Iâve backup in @tony_b but ye all busy, my last entries on the T-100 I think permalinks werenât liked anymore that I submitted, I only did star video change as only one that actually changed & could no longer find a permalink option, in anticipation
Peadar
Thanks for tagging me @Peadar. I mustâve missed it if an instruction was given by @AdamGT or anyone else. Quite surprised to see discussion about 2025 Photo and Video albums, as weâre still working through the final 2024 Leaderboards from the recently uploaded December information.
But yes, you will need to do that at the end of this month when youâre ready to upload your January stats, as there is a new album every year.
Thank you @tony_b
Iâve only 2 to do as 360 pics no longer on leaderboards going forward as very slow uptake
But @AdamGT has left album open for people to still upload their pics
I see your knocking on the door at 101 position ( Top 100 Star Photos December 24 ) & 20th in level 9 category
P
I have either discovered or stumbled across something exciting regarding video views. As many of you know I track a lot of numbers (as any good nerd would, I blame Tony and Alfred for that). As I was charting my videos in the last couple of months I came across quite a few videos that had much higher monthly views than previously.
I didnât know why. Then I discovered that Google is placing a video in the #2 spot of photos. I quickly checked 5 of my most recent Media contributions and lo and behold all 5 of them had a video in 2nd place, a couple of them were mine.
Then I checked 4 other guides from across the world. Same thing I clicked on 5 of their recent contributions and the same results happened. Over 80% of them were videos. I do want you and others to check this out. I only checked on desktop, I clicked on their contribution> clicked on Place details> clicked on the main or cover photo.
Below is a short table showing my results: Videos in 2nd place, Videos not in 2nd place and there no no videos for this POI.
This does explain to me why the sudden growth in my video views. I would like you guides to test a little more. It does seem that this is world wide. I think now is a great time to add videos. I am also trying to come up with an even better video strategy
As both @Annaelisa and @tony_b have kindly described yes you need to do this @Peadar and itâs easy to do and should only take a couple of minutes for significant future gain. Just copy from the 2024 album and paste it into the 2025 album. If you wish then also update the views but either way then visit the T100 site and update your link to the new album!
Nice research @TerryPG and thank you for sharing it with us all.
With the slowdown in growth photo views is this âapparentâ placement of videos perhaps a deliberate strategy to put video higher up on the view counts scale compared to photos!
Thanks for tagging me @AdamGT although I donât make any videos (and donât plan to), but seeing this observations with interest.
For some of my photos, I look occasionally at what position they appear (or not all). While doing so, Iâll watch from now on, whether the POI has a video on position 2 in order to get some more data for @TerryPGâs interesting theory.
A very interesting discovery, Terry!
I used a different approach and checked the 12 POIs I most recently posted photos to. The result is 50:50, i.e. six listings had a video on position 2, they other six had none.
This does not apply to 360° photos, they appeared down in the list among all other photos.
For now, it confirms your theory @TerryPG Iâll keep watching.
Update for one exception now:
A listing with more than 1,000 photos, ironically shows the only video at the second but last position of the list of all photos. Looking at the Video tab, I do see four videos, including the one, I found a the end of the All list.
Terry,
Like you I have noticed this phenomenon as well. It seems to have been the case throughout 2024. Like you I have a few videos that have taken first place, which is rare. But many of my videos are in second place. I donât have the statistics to back up things at the moment, but perhaps next month I will look deeper into it and get back to you. As my time and interest in doing statistical analysis has waned a bit, Iâm happy you have headed forward as the standard Bearer. Always looking forward to seeing your posts.
Thanks Alfred, I do remember you stating that you had videos in the #2 position. After checking many more the same theory is still holding up.
I still think this may be a great time to start adding more videos to our contributions. This does not show the same results on mobile.
@WilfriedB Thank you for checking as well and confirming my thoughts.
Yesterday I had a great conversation with someone I will refer to as a SEO, rankings, YouTube expert. I shared with him my findings and the first thing he mentioned is that the âcreatorâ in our terms the contributor should always tag the contribution. I do and have always tagged my Foodie shots, but not the others. I know you started tagging yours. Question do you include the POI name and itâs location IE. town or city?
( Top 100 Star Photos December 24 ) & 20th in level 9 category
