I realize that Google Earth covers pretty much every square mile of this planet, and each specific image can not be updated too frequently…but c’mon. The image of my house is over 4 years old, and there have been many changes in that time. I look for the new image as a confirmation that the old is gone. When can I expect the picture of my house to be updated?
I wouldn’t hold your breath. Four years is pretty recent really. There are plenty of areas with much older imagery, or simply very low-resolution.
Bear in mind that the highest-resolution pictures are taken by aircraft, not satellites, so it’s not like the camera is going overhead on a regular basis.
IIRC, a lot of the high resolution stuff is from the USGS National Aerial Photography program, which operates on a seven-year cycle. So you’ll probably need to wait three more years.
Google was just on the island a few months ago. I was happy to see they somehow misssed my house at the end of the street.
They’ve done mine 2X. Once, himself was working on his old car in the drive. A mess.
This time, just before the 4 times a year bulk trash pickup, when the neighborhood puts all the brush, tree trimmings, unwanted furniture and the like at the front of the house (we have no alleyways)
Google earth shows my parent’s house as having a pool. The pool was removed 5 years ago.
Mine was taken about two years ago. I can tell by the size of the little Japanese maple I planted.
You can just e-mail Google and ask for your area to be placed on the ‘urgent aerial photo update list’ (be sure to include your exact latitude and longitude). It is a little known service but they have a special group of planes and pilots that they dispatch to rephotograph areas that are reported. It is usually used when buildings are destroyed or land is greatly altered by something like a rock slide or a wildfire but you can also request it just because you think your garden looks particularly good right now or for whatever reason.
These planes are dispatched between 3:00 and 5:00 pm on Saturdays so tell your family to keep a close eye out for low-flying planes over your property. In my experience, it can take up to three weeks for them to charter a plane and get a crew so it is best if you request it a few weeks before your house looks its best and use the time to tidy up the yard really well.
You are pulling our legs, aren’t you, Shagnasty?
I just took a look at mine and estimated it to be 5-7 years old based on the porch lights being on in the middle of the day due to some stupid wiring done by the previous owner in which he wired the garage door opener into the porch lights so I always had to leave them on until I got around to rewiring it.
Then I saw at the bottom where it said July 2007.
I also just realized that’s for Streetview, for “Earth” it was updated just this Summer, I can tell because of the date, but also the recently installed nearby roundabout and the trees in my backyard that are so big now they’re killing all the grass.
Don’t know about Google Earth, but on Google Maps the picture of our house was taken last summer or early fall - I can tell because of the status of the fence.