Google Local: Four Photos

My phone has been prompting me to add pictures to various places I've visited, so that Google can display them to people who are looking for the establishments in question. Free labor for one of the world's most valuable companies? Sure, why not?

For example, if you search for "D&D Cleaners" in Virginia, you will see featured a photo I took (mostly to make a joke about the name).

Google from time to time will e-mail me with a total number of views on all of my photos (as I look now, the D&D cleaners photo has 432 views). As that number got into the tens of thousands, I conceived of the goal of getting a million views.

My reasoning was that the number of views each photo gets should go up linearly over time. If I contribute photos at a steady pace, the total number of photos should also go up linearly. So, the total number of photos should go up quadratically. (You did know I'm a mathematician, right?)

As my number of views passed 100,000 this week, I thought I'd take a look at how my theory is working out. Well, as it turned out, roughly 70% of my views are from just four photos. That sort of blows apart my theory that quantity of photos is key to upping my views. (Unless more photos means a greater chance of having one of the "good" pictures.)

Here they are:
#4 Jumping Jack Sports, Ashburn, VA, 14,840 views, January 2017.

#3 Rubio's, San Diego, CA, 16,470 views, August 2016.

#2 Arby's, Beltsville, MD, 21,263 views, January 2017.

#1 Wendy's, Chantilly, VA, 21,600 views, August 2016.

I have no idea what the lesson of this is. I guess three out of four are panoramas of store interiors, so maybe I should concentrate more on interiors than exteriors. I had switched to exteriors lately on the theory that it would be more helpful to show people how to find the place. I guess if exteriors really are better for views, those will shoot up the rankings, and I can correct. I don't really see what's going on with the Rubio's picture. That seems singularly unhelpful, yet popular.

I guess I will try for more interior panoramas. I really don't want to spend much time on this project, so time spent while waiting to order or waiting for my food (or watching my kid play at a birthday party) seems like a good time to add to my totals.