As Local Guides it’s often amazing which of all of our many photos that we contribute to Google Maps has the most views. We have come to call this our star photo and this post is all about such stars. It includes a set of leaderboards that showcase the star photos of hundreds of Local Guides from all over the world and presents a detailed comparative analysis of their performance.
So what can you learn from the Star Photos Leaderboards?
Well from the very detailed analysis of the star photos of the hundreds of participating Local Guides from all over the world, you can learn a lot about what type of places and what type of photos seem to get the most views on Google Maps and remember, views are important as they provide a fairly good indication on how helpful your photos are to Maps users.
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 Star Photos 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 star photos of hundreds of participating Local Guides from all over the world. We all have a star photo, it’s our photo that has the most views and we call these, the star views.
As well as an overall leaderboard, you will see leaderboards for different Local Guide levels which provide you with direct comparisons of your star photo’s views performance with that of your peers. Finally, there’s a leaderboard ranking the top 100 star photos by average star views per day which gives an indication on how good your star photo is. To be included in this leaderboard, your star photo’s views must have been updated in each of the last 2 consecutive months.
The average star views per day is calculated by dividing the star views by the life of the star photo expressed in days. The life of the star photo is equal to the number of days between when you first uploaded your star photo on Maps and the date that you last updated the star views and thus, will be different for each participating Local Guide. Therefore, for accuracy of the information it is important you enter the correct dates. When it comes to the date that you last updated the star views, point #2 above is very important.
As well as the star views and the date uploaded onto Maps, each listing on the leaderboards shows the Maps Category, and a description (e.g. Storefront, Building or Park) of the respective Local Guide’s star photo.
Hovering over any star photo’s Uploaded Date will display that star’s screenshot date.
If the Maps Category of a star photo is shown as a link and if the name of the relevant Place of Interest was provided by the respective Local Guide, then hovering over that link will show you the name of the place and selecting that link will take you to a screenshot with details of that place as stored on the Local Guides, 2026 Star Photos post, a “photo album” if you will, of star photos.
If the Maps Category of a star photo is shown on a colored background then that star photo has been selected as one of the best that meets the formatting requirements as specified in the Local Guides, 2026 Star Photos post. Select that star photo’s category and see why it has been rated as one of the best and read more about that star photo on the “photo album” post.
Preceding some of the leaderboards, you may see a number of featured star photos. If so, these are a selection from those that best meet the requirements as detailed in the Local Guides, 2026 Star Photos post.
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 username will take you to either that Local Guide’s Connect Profile or to their HUB.
If a number is displayed in small gray circle following a username, that number indicate the number of times anyone has selected that username to visit the respective Local Guide’s Connect profile or HUB.
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 Leaderboards.
If you have changed (a) your Connect username, or (b) your Maps profile ins ome way (e.g. changed your username or profile picture), (c) your Maps profile status from public to hidden or vice versa then you may not appear on one or more of the leaderboards. If so then you must provide the details in a comment on this post.
Local Guides that have not updated their star photo details in the month covered by the Star Photo leaderboards will be excluded from the Average Views/Day leaderboard.
A ? or the words “Not set” in a cell indicates that the respective value cannot be determined or hasn’t been provided by or for the respective Local Guide.
The data for the leaderboards in this post was read at 1145 on Monday, July 6, 2026 (UTC).
Local Guides included on the leaderboards must check their entries for any errors. If you should find any errors or omissions, please add the details in a comment on this post. Regarding omissions, please note point 19 above.
As you will have seen, the cover to this month’s Star Photo leaderboards post is a screenshot of @Kumaarsantosh’s Star Photo Views History table. It clearly shows that Santosh has fairly consistently updated his star photo’s data even though the star views remained fixed at 3,474,008 views and given that, the star views per day consistently decreasing and a 0 delta views each month. Sadly, from the data of those regularly updating like Santosh, the picture is more often than not the same! For example:
I see that the star photo of @JustJake starting from October last year and that of @PrasadVR starting in July last year (see here) have fallen victim to this same zero growth in views pattern.
Given this, and given that others are failing to update, perhaps because their star photo has the same views pattern, I think it’s time to rest the star photo leaderboard post. What do you think?
@AdamGT I tend to agree with you. Also, most of the new people will never catch up to those who had several million views prior to the change in view counting a few years back. Sad.
You might be right, @AdamGT. Even if it is the one that started it all. The Delta data on the Movers and Shakers board will still give credit and recognition to those with rocketing photos.
I agree with you @AdamGT. As you all might know, I track not only my (stale) “star photo”, but also my 32 most viewed photos of all time and those posted after 02/2024. While some of the views of those 61[1] photos do increase rarely once in in while, there is almost not change in the ranking. Both lists are very stable.
Besides that, I never considered my photo as a “star” and did not do anything to reach almost 2 million views. At least for my photo, I consider it just lucky.
Regarding
Your name will not be removed @doni_hariadi. This leader board for June 2026, as well as those for previous months will still be visible. Over time, your name will also appear in one or more of the other boards.
Three of the photos posted in 2024 also appear in the top 32 of all time ↩︎
My situation is also the same @AdamGT, except that there was a 1% increase in April which reflected in the Star Views History table that month. So some of us will have one line change in the table intermittently, and no change on many other lines.
My only comment on this is that Google has listened to @AdamGT and made a change on another Maps aspect recently. Maybe there’s a slim chance they’d listen and revert to a more transparent method of displaying views of high-ranking photos.
I can relate to this, as I still can’t understand why my insignificant amateur photo quickly gained over 2 million views when it was uploaded. Not Star material at all, in the true sense.
