Who will reach 2 billion photo views first?

[MortenCopenhagen]

versus

A few years back, @TerryPG and I had a fun and friendly race to reach 1 billion photo views. Luckily, I forgot who won!

But we have been approximately equal in posting new photos and getting photo views.

So in this post, I want to share some fresh data to predict whether @TerryPG or I will reach the 2 billion photo views mark first. And of course, when this is likely to happen.

I’m posting this partly because I’m excited about who wins. But also to inspire fellow Local Guides on using the LGR website to predict such achievements.

Let’s start with the data for @TerryPG

From the screenshot below, taken today, Sunday, June 28, 2026, we know that Terry currently has 1.961.850.797 billion views.

To reach 2 billion, he needs another 38.158.000 views.

Now let us take a look at how many views Terry normally gets pr month and per day.

For this, we need to open Terry’s profile on LocalGuidesRanking.com. Here is the link

Terry PG - Rank 57 on Google Local Guides Ranking

If you scroll down, there is a table showing how many new views Terry gets per 30-day period.

Over the past 60 days, Terry gained:
May 24,561,585 views
June 29,029,133 views

This comes out to an average of 893,179 views per day.

So it is likely that Terry will hit the 2B mark in 42.7 days. That will be on August 9th 2026.

Now let’s examine my statistics in the same way.

I have 1,974,320,318 photo views as of today:

So I’m missing 25,679,682 views to reach the 2B mark.

And here are my latest data harvested from LGR:

May: 26,327,271
June: 26,638,331

This is 52,965,602 views per 60 days = 882,760 views per day.

So it is likely that I will hit the 2B mark in 29.1 days. That will be on July 27th 2026.

So if these calculations are correct and we don’t do something crazy, I believe I will reach the 2B mark about 2 weeks before Terry. Sorry, Terry

I did the calculations in the spreadsheet:

Terry Morten Friendly competition

[Annaelisa]

Ich drücke euch beiden die Daumen @TerryPG und @MortenCopenhagen

[JanVanHaver]

And in a quiet corner, @TorM sits silently, trying to remember when exactly he reached 2B Must have been ages ago.

[efcxp]

That’s interesting one to follow @MortenCopenhagen
The 1bi one was a entertaining thread to read. Really funny!

And I’m wondering if it’s possible to @TerryPG win this one.
I mean, we know there is no 100% recipe that work on speed views up. Of course, upload media consistently and having great featured media in strategic POIs helps but there is no cake recipe as far as I know.

But reflecting a bit about this race, I wonder if Terry greatly increase his media uploads is enough to get close to a twist. That’s a genuine question.

I can see you have more photos uploads in the last days while Terry has more videos. Well, maybe there is no winner yet as vídeos are getting more and more views and featured positions.

Interesting to see the same growth proportionally

Below as the video numbers

Even it appearing for a “photos” views friendly race, the total number also includes videos numbers, right?

Upmost it will be a interesting thread again.

Congrats to both for the expected 2bi views! That’s a great milestone.

[MortenCopenhagen]

@efcxp

Even it appearing for a “photos” views friendly race, the total number also includes videos numbers, right?

Yes, the total photo views do include video views also.

[marcorp]

@MortenCopenhagen wow, those numbers are massive! Congrats to both of you!

[TerryPG]

I’m so glad you did this @MortenCopenhagen , you are ahead of me and we would have been extremely close if the dummy me in an effort to clean up my closed POI’s didn’t remove photos that had about 14 million views.
I am thinking you will will this race.

@MortenCopenhagen

A few years back, @TerryPG and I had a fun and friendly race to reach 1 billion photo views. Luckily, I forgot who won!

But we have been approximately equal in posting new photos and getting photo views.

Please let me remind you That I did win the race to 1 Billion.
Here is the entertaining link for all to see.

https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t/race-to-a-billion-photo-views/392712

Either way 2 Billion views is amazing. Lets have some fun achieving this magical number,

[TerryPG]

Some interesting thoughts @efcxp , I don’t know if I have enough time to catch Morten but you may have given me some ideas. Thanks,

[PrasadVR]

It’s great to see the friendly race between these two stalwarts; @MortenCopenhagen and @TerryPG. The table is very informative. It would be even more interesting if you could add a few more parameters, such as the number of photos, number of videos, views per photo, and views per video. Advance congratulations to both of you!

[MortenCopenhagen]

Huge congrats on reaching the first Billion views first, @TerryPG.

And thanks for digging up the link.

We already discussed the need for cleaning up our profiles. I certainly have some zero views and low performance photos I would like to remove. This is likely to bring me back under 2B so maybe we can do second race to 2B. Haha. But it is a lot of work going through all out photos and videos.

But it will improve our average views per photo which is a more important metric in my opinion. It’s a better indicator of “quality” and “helpfulness”. And the process can hopefully bring us new insights into the photo selection AI.

All the best

[MortenCopenhagen]

Carefully guys, I may have to go on a few extra photo walks to counter this…

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi @PrasadVR

You are right, but my excuse is that I hope we can do a tandem follow up post focussing on the results of a parallel clean up and the effects on average views/pic and how many photos and videos we chose to take down.

@TerryPG, maybe we need to use the same criteria when cleaning up. There is a lot to discuss and I’m sure the resulting post will be very interesting and educational.

Cheers to both of you.

[WilfriedB]

@TerryPG

… in an effort to clean up my closed POI’s didn’t remove photos that had about 14 million views.

@TerryPG and @MortenCopenhagen this confirms my attitude to remove photos only when being forced (i.e. violating a rule). I remember having asked Terry, why he did this and he responded some something similar to “increase the average views”.

Average number of views is just an artificial metric, but the 14 millions of views were real - regardless whether the businesses still exist or not!

Curious now, if the 14 millions will just make the difference for the race towards the 2 Billions. Crossing fingers for both of you!

[SoniaK]

That’s sounds like a fun contest, @MortenCopenhagen
Looking forward to seeing who gets the crown. All the best for both you and @TerryPG

[DshottDennis]

@MortenCopenhagen @TerryPG
The thrill and excitement is back on

I so much get lost in the statistics of averages and the calculations but just love also the friendly race to the next milestones

At this stage I have my monopoly money on @TerryPG who inspired me to keep going in the reality race of life (Mental health well being​) how ever all the best strategies and good racing to the both of you

[GasparKaren]

@MortenCopenhagen and @TerryPG You guys are amazing, I’m so excited watching this beautiful and joyful competition!

[SamanthaSheehy]

Teeheeheee…

[ChamnanMuon]

Wow! Over 1B views ! That’s great helpful for getting thru your photos.

[tony_b]

@MortenCopenhagen

I’m posting this partly because I’m excited about who wins. But also to inspire fellow Local Guides on using the LGR website to predict such achievements.

I love these statistical challenges, and I’m only going to say now that predictions are so unpredictable.

When I used a calculator tool in the last quarter of 2025 to predict when I’d reach 100,000 points, all my main points earners suddenly started earning points more slowly than predicted, and I missed my December 31st target.

When I thought my wild horse Star Video would quickly reach a million views and join my three top photos, it suddenly stopped galloping and slowed right down to a canter.

So while the numbers indicate that @MortenCopenhagen should reach the finish line before @TerryPG, I’d say at this moment it’s too close to call. One or the other could suddenly stop getting views on their fastest-growing photos and turn the results around completely.

[MortenCopenhagen]

@tony_b

You are absolutely right that the race is still open.

There have been changes in how long cover photos and featured photos remain. This could easily influence who wins. But it is also worth mentioning that we both have several thousands of photos/videos so it might even out.

An interesting metric is the variation in photo views per month. It is somewhat stable. But Terry has fewer month recorded by LGR.