Does Google 360 picture improves ranking?

[NielsNeumann]

Hello

From your experience, does posting 360 photos in GBP affect the ranking?

 

[keyserholiday]

No, not at all. It's good to have it, but it won't impact rankings at all.

 

[NielsNeumann]

Thank you for the insight

 

[Bernhard]

No, not at all. It's good to have it, but it won't impact rankings at all.

I am very sorry to contradict you, but your answer is not totally correct. IF only posted in the GBP yes.....
BUT
I have several customers whose local standing proves the opposite!
However, you have to consider certain basics:
1. the tour must be created by a certified agency or photographer in order for the pano shots (individual photographs) to be claimed by GBP as a photograph by the client.
2. the tour must be prominently embedded on the client's landing page via an iframe so that every visitor sees it and engages with it.
3. optimally, the tour is extended with an interactive layer that uses the previously identified keywords as navigation points and connects the links to the corresponding content on the site.

Now that many visitors to the site are engaged with the tour, each interaction (technically, viewing individual photos) is tracked as a call to a photo by the customer.

This has a big impact.

Here an example:

ZERO ZERO Baden

RECORD STORE in Baden, Vinyl Schallplatten & CD. Neu und Second Hand. An- und Verkauf. Zur interaktiven Tour Samstag 9. Nov. Ab 21.00 Uhr…Captain Zero plays FUNK, SOUL & REGGAE im Zäni, die coole Musik Bar in Baden, Mittlere Gasse 10. Freitag 29. Nov. Record Store Day am Black Friday. Viele...

zerozero.ch

added you will find the statistics of this particular customer as well as his standing for the main keyword. When i started with him, he was nowhere
This is only one example of quite some with the same outcome.

Best regards
Bernhard

 

[mblumenthal]

@Bernhard
Several questions:
-is the 360 Photo the only effort you made on the client's behalf?
-Was there other local seo work done? If so what?
-Was their improvement in ranking that you can attribute directly to the 360?
-Was their improvement in conversions? measured via Insights (ie increased calls for example) or via the website?

 

[Bernhard]

@Mike B
1. This particular customer is a denier of real internet usage, therefore i only optimised the basic information in the GBP. He refuses to use the services and product part as well as the Q&A or make posts. Allthough i tell at every meeting that this would help him further..... It goes slowly step by step
2. Yes, I see a correlation of the pictures looked at to the local ranking
3. Yes, the site is tracked and i count the data from the GBP statistics which shows clearly that it gets more and more.
Sorry forgot one thing, what i do for him is answering his reviews.

 

[keyserholiday]

I am sorry but photo view counts are wildly inconsistent. I have verified new business profiles and had Google credit the photos with hundreds of reviews within a minute of being verified. Joy wrote the best breakdown on how to interpret Google insights.
"My church (in a very small town) gets an average of 20-40 photo views a day. Their monthly photo views exceed the number of people who actually attend the church. When I asked Google for an explanation for this, they said that “view photos” is counting both impressions (the photo appears in the 3-pack or knowledge panel) and if a user clicks to go to the photos. So these really are not clicks but rather impressions (and could be very misleading)."

I urge you to read the entire post as there is a lot of great insights there.

Also, you said, "the tour must be prominently embedded on the client's landing page via an iframe so that every visitor sees it and engages with it." So that means that the 360 tour wasn't just added to the GBP but to the website as well. This is not an apples to apples to comparison as you did several changes to alter the website and business profile. The website has a direct impact on the ranking and visibility of the business profile as do links and citations.

 

[Bernhard]

I am sorry but photo view counts are wildly inconsistent. I have verified new business profiles and had Google credit the photos with hundreds of reviews within a minute of being verified. Joy wrote the best breakdown on how to interpret Google insights.
"My church (in a very small town) gets an average of 20-40 photo views a day. Their monthly photo views exceed the number of people who actually attend the church. When I asked Google for an explanation for this, they said that “view photos” is counting both impressions (the photo appears in the 3-pack or knowledge panel) and if a user clicks to go to the photos. So these really are not clicks but rather impressions (and could be very misleading)."

I urge you to read the entire post as there is a lot of great insights there.

Also, you said, "the tour must be prominently embedded on the client's landing page via an iframe so that every visitor sees it and engages with it." So that means that the 360 tour wasn't just added to the GBP but to the website as well. This is not an apples to apples to comparison as you did several changes to alter the website and business profile. The website has a direct impact on the ranking and visibility of the business profile as do links and citations.

First of all im swiss, my english is rusty, so please have some understanding that not all is quite correct.
Secondly as i clearly wrote IF only in GBP you are right, BUT and that is not apple by apple. It is an added comment on the thread with, maybe, an added viewpoint.
and yes the interactive layer is clickable therefore it is a click but on behalf of the original streetview trusted it is an impression.
What i forgot, thank you for the link but i have already read it when Joy published it. If you read the part about the pictures, you find no explanation about pictures from the owner and pictures from the customer.....? All i can say is what i see with customers that have this kind of interactive tour.

 

[keyserholiday]

There are only 3 record stores in the area. I'd love to see results in a competitive market and niche. What would happen if you added a 360 tour to a record shop in Zurich?

 

[Bernhard]

are 260 results for the keyword "extensions" enough for you?

Home - Coiffure Ume

Extensions und Echthaar oder Kunsthaar Perücken helfen dass Sie trotzdem schönes, volles und langes Haar besitzen können.

coiffure-ume.ch

extensions zürich - Google Search

 

[Bernhard]

that was the start last year in february

 

[Bernhard]

There are only 3 record stores in the area. I'd love to see results in a competitive market and niche. What would happen if you added a 360 tour to a record shop in Zurich?

I suggest you read post's first. i did not wrote about his shop in zürich, i wrote (and gave the scan) of his shop in Baden. Reaching out to Germany in the north, suburbs of Zürich to the east, Aarau to the west and Wohlen to the south. In this area we have 19 record shops.

 

[keyserholiday]

I spend a lot of time in local. I used to manage 500 locations for brand A, 300 for Brand B, 50 for Brand C, and 1200 for Brand D. I am not a newbie and I dive into results and SEO claims. I know how proximity correlates with results. Google has a major ranking update last November too. There have been a lot of ranking updates in search over the course of the past year. I have been studying all of the claims that photos move the ranking needle. The new trend is 360 tours fix ranking issues or boost rankings. I have read and studied your post and replies.

So when did you update the Google Business Profile name to add CD and Vinyl? Isn't this what you advise all of your clients?

 

[Bernhard]

to be honest, your behavior doesn't seem very adult to me. I can only reflect my feelings here, but I recognize a clear structure in your posts:

1. oh, someone allows himself to have a different point of view than me, that's not at all. Therefore, I have to reprimand this person right away.

2. now comes a response and instead of that I respond to it, and enter into a discussion at eye level, I simply raise false allegations and try to pull the other into ridicule.

Ouch, now he has given me an example that shows that his point could be something.

4. of course I do not go into it, but must lead an ad hominem manslaughter *argument". At the same time I have to emphasize how great I am......

Sorry, I don't want to communicate on this track. I wish you a good time.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

 

[keyserholiday]

to be honest, your behavior doesn't seem very adult to me. I can only reflect my feelings here, but I recognize a clear structure in your posts:

1. oh, someone allows himself to have a different point of view than me, that's not at all. Therefore, I have to reprimand this person right away.

2. now comes a response and instead of that I respond to it, and enter into a discussion at eye level, I simply raise false allegations and try to pull the other into ridicule.

Ouch, now he has given me an example that shows that his point could be something.

4. of course I do not go into it, but must lead an ad hominem manslaughter *argument". At the same time I have to emphasize how great I am......

Sorry, I don't want to communicate on this track. I wish you a good time.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

You raised the argument that you see increased rankings by adding a 360 tour. Mike asked you if anything else was done. I took a deeper dive into the business profile and your other replies. I am pointing out my observations on what I discovered. I can't come to the conclusion that adding a 360 tour improves rankings. I do know that adding keywords to a business name does impact rankings. I am merely trying to understand what changes were made and how competitive the area is.

FYI, advising your clients to break Google's TOS can cause them the get suspended and you could be looking at an account level suspension for doing it.

 

[Bernhard]

I am well aware about the guidlines about keyword spamming in the name. IF the customer clearly tells me that Vinyl & CD is the baseline of his business name then i have to follow this. And just FYI, we talk here about Plattenladen or record store not Vinyl nor CD. Secondly you can easily see his correct company name as soon as the website für Baden is relaunched, what we do at this very moment with the creation of his site for Zürich which he finally accepted to do.

I answered Mike's question, you could easily see it. I gave you another example, if you wish i could give you also a third one.
All i ever said are my observations, all have substancially more views "pictures from clients" than there competition. And all raised.

Sorry i forgot you deliver the local scan for his shop in Zürich which you demanded. Distance between points is 2.5 km (like all others)

 

[keyserholiday]

I am well aware about the guidlines about keyword spamming in the name. IF the customer clearly tells me that Vinyl & CD is the baseline of his business name then i have to follow this. And just FYI, we talk here about Plattenladen or record store not Vinyl nor CD. Secondly you can easily see his correct company name as soon as the website is relaunched, what we do at this very moment with his site for Zürich which he finally accepted to do.

I answered Mike's question, you could easily see it. I gave you another example, if you wish i could give you also a third one.
All i ever said are my observations, all have substancially more views "pictures from clients" than there competition. And all raised.

If you were aware of the guidelines, you wouldn't be violating the TOS and adding keywords to the business name. I would love to see what happens once you remove the keywords from the business name. I just search my area for "Plattenladen" and I was present with record stores. Google is smart enough to translate a word and still give accurate results.



Did you read the post I linked to and about how the data is misleading?

I volunteer here to help out and give back. I am trying to help and educate you. I have been doing SEO for 16 years and I never take data at face value. I always investigate any and all claims. I am sorry if you are taking offense to my questions and my observations. You came here to refute my claim and I am finding lots of issues with your claim and data. I am pointing out that it's not an apples-to-apples comparison when it's an apples to oranges comparison. Sadly too many marketers get confused by causation vs correlation, which is what I suspect you are doing here.

 

[Bernhard]

What do i have to do that you are willing to understand? His NAME is zero zero Vinyl & CD for Baden and zero zero Rare Groove for Zürich.
And tbh bringing up an example about a keyword in another language vs. a complete different one?
before this leads into a never ending story, let's agree that we don't agree.
For the sake of all others here let us stop at this point please.
As already written, i wish you a good time

 

[NielsNeumann]

@Mike B
1. This particular customer is a denier of real internet usage, therefore i only optimised the basic information in the GBP. He refuses to use the services and product part as well as the Q&A or make posts. Allthough i tell at every meeting that this would help him further..... It goes slowly step by step
2. Yes, I see a correlation of the pictures looked at to the local ranking
3. Yes, the site is tracked and i count the data from the GBP statistics which shows clearly that it gets more and more.
Sorry forgot one thing, what i do for him is answering his reviews.

I found your explanation with the 360 degree tour interesting. Have you been able to determine differences, whether the pure posting of 360 degree images has made an improvement? So not a tour, but pure images?

Do you think posting 360 tours by themselves makes a difference? Apparently, there is an option to combine 360 images into a tour and then post it yourself. Or do you think having a certified 360 degree photographer will give you a ranking boost?

Did the stores also get more reviews in that time?

 

[keyserholiday]

Those are not his business names. He can't have one website and 2 GBP with different names. His name is and needs to be Zero Zero. Please read Google's guidelines on how to represent your business name. I am a Google Business Product Expert and the unofficial sheriff of Google.

Again, I am trying to educate you and others that things are more than they appear. You haven't been able to prove the point that 360 tours help rankings at all. I need to run along now as I have a lot of keyword-stuffed businesses to report.