This post is all about the photos contributed to Google Maps by Local Guides from all over the world. More specifically, it’s about the views that these photos rack up and consists of a series of leaderboards showcasing the view counts of these photos. There’s a leaderboard for each Local Guide level and in this way you don’t have to be a “top gun” level 10 Local Guide with a mega million views to be featured on the Leaderboards! Whether you’re an entry level Local Guide or from a small country, town or village, or a top level Local Guide from London, New Delhi or New York, you can join in and it’s simple to do! If you want to jump on board, hit this link or just mention your interest in a comment in this post.
Why are photo views important?
While as Local Guides we don’t get points for the views that our contributions generate, we all know that views are important as they give us a pretty good indication on how we are impacting on our communities at the Local Guide level. For example, they give us a good indication on how many people we have helped make a decision such as what place to visit or what meal to have.
So while we don’t get points for photo views, we certainly get an awesome feeling when we see that our photos are being viewed by lots of people and being visible across Google services, like Search, means that our photo view counts can increase significantly and you will see on the Leaderboards in this post, how significant this can be.
Is this just a competition?
While there is an inherent competitive element within them, the Leaderboards are more than just about seeing who has the “best” photos or the most photo views. Far from it! They have been specifically designed to motivate us, help us to monitor our contributions and performance, and show us how to improve and make better contributions so that we achieve better results, and all in a fun and enjoyable way! So do join in.
If you’re new here then you may not be aware that this post forms part of a series of Leaderboard posts each covering different aspects of the Maps contributions made by Local Guides. To see an index to these different leaderboard posts and all the posts associated with them, simply hit this link
Readme - How to Read the Photo Views leaderboards (June, 2025)
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 photo views of hundreds of participating Local Guides from all over the world. As well as an overall leaderboard ranking the top 100 Local Guides by photo views, you will see leaderboards for different Local Guide levels which provide you with direct comparisons of your photo views achievements with that of your peers.
There’s also Top 100 Leaderboards showcasing the top average views per media and average views per photo which give a good indication of the overall “quality” of all media and photos taken by each Local Guide. This is simply calculated by dividing the Local Guide’s total media (photo) views value by the number of publicly visible contributed media (photos). Of course the use of the term “quality” here refers to the attractiveness of the photos to the Google AI and the viewing public.
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 Usernames will take you to that Local Guide’s Connect Profile.
To provide a level playing field, Local Guides that should but don’t provide/update their video impact data will not be included in photo views leaderboards. In this case, Local Guides that make it onto the media views leaderboards will be shown with a [3] superscript following Connect username. To avoid being excluded from photo views leaderboards, Local Guides must use the Leaderboard System to update their video impact value.
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 Photo Views Leaderboards.
A ? or the words “Not set” in a cell indicates that the respective value hasn’t been provided by or cannot be determined for the respective Local Guide.
The data for the leaderboards in this post was read at 0300 on Wednesday, July 2, 2025 (UTC).
If you’re a participating Local Guide you must check the leaderboards for any errors or omissions and if you find any, then please add the details in a comment on this post. Regarding omissions, please note point 10 above.
Of the new participants this month we welcome those that made it onto the Photo Views leaderboards and just have a look at those heavy hitters. Well done guys! You rock the charts!
And of course a BIG CONGRATULATIONS to @shunsader who makes it into both the billion media and billion photo views clubs!
I see some Local Guides possibly missing from one or more of the boards…so please do the usual deep checking.
Well I did give this some thought and have come up with the alternative shown on this month’s Top 100 Media Views and Top 100 Photo Views boards and have eliminated the previous Billion Photo Views board. The the Billion Photo Views Club still exists but is now incorporated within the Top 100 Photo Views board and similarly, we now have the new Billion Photo Views Club within the Top 100 Media Views board.
Yes this is a simple idea and you can think of it as having those who are knocking at the door to get onto the board at the bottom end, and those top achievers at the top end knocking the door at the top end of town. I’ve done this amalgamation this way, not to diminish the significance of the views achievement of the top Local Guides in any way, but to eliminate one board, meaning that there’s one less board to prepare and post, and one less board for everyone to check for accuracy. What do you think? Any suggestions for improving this new format?
Thanks @Annaelisa. This same Local Guide had the same issue last month (see here) and as I mentioned here, the reason for this data entry errors on the part of @Jagannath098 - video impact greater then media views If this happens again, the user will be deleted.
@AdamGT ich verstehe es nicht.
Er hat 10.992.237 gesamt Fotoaufrufe und 7.476.260 gesamt Video Aufrufe.
Sein Spitzenreiter ist ein Video mit 6.034.758 Aufrufen.
Wie kommt dann diese Minus Anzeige zu Stande.
Thank you, @AdamGT , for the fresh new look. The new board looks better. The new board has removed repeated names but still highlights the billion-view achievers.