Revamping the Photo Layer in Google Maps

Posted by Jonah Jones, User Experience Designer, Google Maps Team

Here at Google, we love the experience of browsing photos on a map, and today it just got a lot easier. We have launched an update to the design of the Photo layer in Google Maps to provide you with a better experience when browsing your favourite places:

There are three main improvements in this latest update:

Firstly, we have made improvements to the density of the photos on the map, making it easier to see clusters of photos in popular locations. On the screenshot above, you can now well see that there are a lot more photos taken on the coast than there are inland.

Secondly, we’ve made the small thumbnails partially transparent, making it easier to see the underlying map, and helping you to stay oriented. On the screenshot above, the city and neighbourhood labels are now more legible.

Finally, we are showing more information when you hover over a photo. Now, you can see a large thumbnail and the title of each image, so you can get a fast preview of what any photo looks like.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the new layer, so feel free to leave us your comments in the Panoramio forum.

A more picturesque Google profile

Posted by Dave Cohen, Engineer Google Photos

Recently we updated Google Profiles to help you decide what the world sees when it searches for you. Your profile and scrapbook photos already make it easier for people to get to know you, but we want to do more to help you showcase your favorite pics.

Now you can add Picasa Web Albums to your Google profiles. By choosing to show the “PicasaWeb” tab, you will enable visitors to see your public albums. Private albums will remain visible to only the people you’ve shared them with directly.

Add Picasa Web Albums to your profile now by visiting profiles.google.com. We hope you enjoy this change, and be sure to let us know what you think in our forum. Happy posting!

Google Photos Salutes National Travel & Tourism Week

Posted by Brian Rose, Community Manager

Traveling is one of the most exciting things you can do, so a camera is a must-have on your packing list. Part of the fun of capturing your trip is to share it with others and relive the experience yourself years later. So in honor of U.S. National Travel & Tourism week, we’d like to invite everyone to visit Panoramio and take a virtual trip to Las Vegas, Zurich, or Hawaii; upload your latest trip to Picasa Web Albums; or edit with Picnik to highlight just how magnificent that blue sky was, and share with your friends and family.

We hope you enjoy some of the Photos team’s favorite photos from our travels. To create your own photo collage with Picasa, follow these steps.

So whether you’re about to leave on a trip, just returned or inspired by Travel & Tourism week to set out on an adventure, don’t forget your camera. Whether you’re off to some exotic destination or even your hometown, remember to share with the world the photos you’ve taken. Happy travels!

Strong Google Adsense Earnings

There's been a good deal of chatter in the online writing world regarding Google's recent algorithm change, which basically penalized sites with low-quality content and gave more search engine favor to sites with original, high-quality material. Places like ezinearticles.com, HubPages.com and numerous "content farms" with duplicate content, PLR articles, spun articles and other cheap content saw their traffic suffer and even nosedive.

Conversely, websites with good and excellent quality control and all original material received a boost from the changes. My own niche site on pets was one of these -- its Adsense earnings for March are stronger than ever. My total Adsense for March is projected to be my highest month to date and should close at 0 or more. I'm still working on my goal to get that up to ,000 a month by the end of the year.

How can online writers, especially those working to build up their residual income through niche sites and blogs, stay on Google's good side? What do you need to know to "write for Google"?

Don't write for Google. 

That's the simplest way to put it. Your website, whether monetized with adsense units, affiliate links, paid ads or a combination of these and other models, should have its audience (real live humans) as the primary focus when creating content, not Google (the robots).

Is your site helpful? Funny? Informative? Will the people who find your blog based on the keywords you're targeting find what they need -- whether its information, resources, product reviews -- if they land on your site?

Do you publish only original, creative, quality material, whether it's written by yourself or a paid freelancer? You should be -- for the sake of your readers and for your own success. I have never paid for PLR articles (the ones sold in packs to multiple buyers who then tweak them to make them "different"). I have never "spun" articles myself or with a program to turn copied content into something "unique." About 95% of my content, including the articles I post on article directory sites, was written by me. I've paid for a few articles but only from US-based freelance writers.

Ensuring the best of quality control on your site, in addition to a pleasing template and tasteful ads and links, is the best thing you can do for your online business and to increase your residual income. Position your sites so that these quality control checks by Google and other search engines improve your ranking and boost your earnings, not the opposite.


Did Google's changes affect you, for good or bad? What's your strategy to improving your online residual income?