Pink Garlic Indian Restaurant, Taunton, United Kingdom
This was one of the first images I uploaded for Google Maps after I joined 11th January 2020. I took the majority of my initial photos when I was out walking - usually with my dog, a small Cavachon, called Bertie. I took this with the iPhone 10 Pro Max. He has gotten so used to me stopping to take pictures he just sits and waits patiently for me to finish! I find restaurant/food provider images often do better than most of the other pictures I take. The count has not changed in the last two months - this may be because it is no longer the featured image or it maybe to do with the ongoing count issues with Google Maps. I can only see count changes in 2 of my top 25 images in the last two months.
This is not the best photo I have taken. This has now been replaced as the featured picture after 3 years. So it is likely to be overtaken as my star photo by a storefront picture of Argos in Taunton - another really dull image which is currently sitting on 2.58 million views - so it seems likely to overtake it in the next three months. It’s weird, looking back a few months, that this seemed like a reasonable prediction. With Google Maps in its current state, there doesn’t appear to be a clear path or timeframe for things to get back to normal.
I have recently taken a new version of this picture as the business has been updated and makes for a more vibrant image. However, after 8 months it is not the first image (4th), and has only achieved just under 17,000 views. The theme of the images Google Maps has chosen to feature are more group/vibe centric. In my opinion these don’t successfully provide information which helps to accurately promote what the restaurant does.
In April 2024, I took an updated day shot of the restaurant façade. After 8 months this has been viewed 20,896 times. At the same time the updated night picture, from October 2023, appears to have stalled. It will be interesting to see whether the count keeps increasing for the newer picture.
